Congress' tea garden pic gaffe angers Himanta; asks Rahul Gandhi to stop 'insulting' Assam

Assam Health Minister and BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma tore into Congress on Thursday for allegedly passing off an image from Sri Lanka as that of his state. He was referring to a tweet by the official Congress Twitter handle announcing the two-day visit of ex-Congress president Rahul Gandhi for the Assam election campaign. To buttress his claim, Sarma shared a screenshot from Adobe Stock which showed a similar image to the one used by Congress titled 'Tea plantations and factory in Sri Lanka'.

Launching a scathing attack on Gandhi, the NEDA convenor urged him to stop insulting the people of Assam. While the @INCIndia Twitter handle deleted the tweet, the image was still visible in a post by the All India Mahila Congress. Incidentally, this is not the first time Sarma has fact-checked posts put out by Congress. For instance, he had called out the Sonia Gandhi-led party for wrongly representing a tea garden from Taiwan as that of Assam. 

Assam Assembly polls

The 15-year tenure of Tarun Gogoi as the Chief Minister of Assam came to an end in the 2016 Assembly polls with BJP winning 86 seats as against 26 seats won by Congress. In a blow for BJP in the lead-up to the upcoming Assembly election, its ally Bodoland People's Front (BPF) decided to join the Congress-led alliance. Meanwhile, the opposition has stitched a strong alliance with Congress, BPF, AGM, AIUDF, CPI, CPI(M) and CPI(ML) joining hands. 

Announcing the dates of the upcoming Assembly polls, Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora mentioned that 18.68 crore persons will decide the fate of 824 seats in the aforesaid 4 States and one Union Territory at 2.7 lakh polling stations. 47, 39 and 40 constituencies of Assam will go to the polls on March 27, April 1 and April 6 respectively. While the polling time has been increased by one hour, there will be 33,530 polling stations. The counting of votes will take place on May 2.