Guwahati, May 9: Former Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi today alleged that education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had not ensured that doctors prescribe generic drugs when he was the health minister in the Congress-led government at Dispur.

Sarma was in Gogoi's Cabinet before he left the Congress to join the BJP in August 2015.

The move on generic drugs, almost the same as branded drugs but much cheaper, and setting up of corporation to purchase medical goods, were initiated during Gogoi's third and last term as chief minister to extend relief to patients and their families, the veteran Congressman said.

Gogoi was chief minister from 2001 till 2016 while Sarma was one of his trusted aides and ministers, holding key portfolios. Gogoi's raising the generic and corporation issue as a counter comes a day after Sarma disclosed that markings in matric exams were inflated to boost results - and also at a time when the BJP-led government, both at the Centre and the state, is trying to make healthcare affordable.

"The generic medicine salvo will take some sheen off Dispur's efforts to be seen as a responsive and caring administration. Gogoi has used the Seba grace marks controversy to convey that his government, too was caring but Sarma scuttled his efforts. It's clear Gogoi will pay back in the same coin," a Congress insider said.

Dismissing Sarma's Seba salvo as baseless, the former chief minister and sitting MLA said he had no knowledge of this and had not given any instruction to increase the matric pass percentage. "This (Seba marking) is completely baseless. I am not a 420. I demand a CBI inquiry to probe the matter raised by Sarma who had not implemented my formal instruction to ensure doctors prescribe generic drugs and that a corporation be set up for purchase of medical goods to weed out middlemen. He used to say it will be done when I reminded him but he never implemented it," Gogoi said.

Gogoi addressed a news conference in the Assembly today in the company of former health minister Nazrul Islam and his former press adviser Abdul Khaleque.