Less than a week after quitting Congress, Assam's senior politician Himanta Biswa Sarma today joined BJP ahead of fresh assembly elections in the state later this year.
Addressing a press conference after joining BJP, Sarma, a former a minister, termed as "totally wrong" the information contained in a BJP document naming him as a key accused in Louis Berger bribery case.
"The information included in the document (published by BJP) was totally wrong," he said in presence of BJP National Secretary Mahendra Singh and Assam unit President Siddhartha Bhattacharya.
Sarma was asked about the BJP document published about a month back to highlight alleged corruption in Congress-ruled states and named Sarma as the key accused in the Louis Berger bribery case.
Bhattacharya, for his part, said the document was prepared after state BJP unit provided the information based on media reports but the party "realised and corrected" it later after going through all the judgement copy of the US Department of Justice.
Asked about his reason behind joining BJP, Sarma said "people migrate from one party to another in politics. But I have not done it for just mere politics. I have done it for a different ideology and dream... Time changes, situation changes.
"When I had left minister's post last year, then Rahul Gandhi had called me for a discussion. It was not a talk but only an argument. I was telling him about many issues but every time said 'so what'. After coming out of that meeting, I decided to join BJP," said Sarma.
Addressing a meeting, Sarma, once a strong critic of BJP, said "those who have read the books of RSS ideologues Hedgewar, Golwalkar and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee cannot term BJP as a communal party."
"My elder brother was associated with RSS. He gave me to read Vivekananda's Chicago lecture. After reading it, I wondered what I was doing in my 23 years in Congress," he added.
