Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday rallied behind party leader Pawan Khera after the Assam government’s move to challenge the transit anticipatory bail granted to Khera by Telangana High Court on April 10.

The case involves Khera’s allegations against Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and his wife Riniki Bhuyan Sarma.

In a post on X, the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul, again dubbed Sarma as the “most corrupt chief minister in the country”, an allegation he had first raised on January 18, 2024, when the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra led by him entered Sivasagar in Assam from Nagaland.

Asserting that the Congress will not be intimidated by the case against Khera, Rahul posted: “The present CM of Assam is the most corrupt in the country. He will not escape the law. His abuse of state power to harass his political opponents and critics is against the Constitution.

“The questions that are being raised (by Khera) have to be probed. Transparency, accountability of power and rule of law are the basis of our Constitutional values. The Congress Party stands with Pawan Khera. We will not be intimidated.”

Assam Pradesh Congress Committee chief, Gaurav Gogoi, reposted Rahul’s post supporting Khera, the chairman of the media and communications department of the All India Congress Committee.

Khera had held back-to-back press conferences on April 5 in Delhi and Guwahati, accusing Riniki of holding multiple passports and properties abroad, which were allegedly not disclosed by the chief minister in his election affidavit.

Within hours, Sarma had rejected Khera’s allegations. “These are malicious, fabricated, and politically motivated lies aimed at misleading the people of Assam,” Sarma said, adding he and his wife “will be filing both criminal and civil defamation cases within the next 48 hours against” Khera and he will be “held fully accountable for his reckless and defamatory statements”.

According to a report in the Bar and Bench, a leading portal dealing with legal news, the Assam government has approached the Supreme Court challenging the Telangana High Court decision to grant transit anticipatory bail for a week to Khera in a case of forgery and criminal conspiracy registered against him by Assam police following Khera’s claims that Riniki “holds multiple foreign passports and undisclosed assets abroad”.

The case was registered on a complaint filed by Sarma’s wife in Guwahati, prompting an Assam police team to visit Khera’s residence in Delhi on April 7, but he was not present there. Khera later approached Telangana High Court seeking transit anticipatory bail.

Justice K. Sujana of Telangana High Court on April 10 granted Khera relief for a week within which time he can move a regular anticipatory bail plea before the court concerned having jurisdiction, the Bar and Bench report said. “This has now been challenged before the apex court,” the Bar and Bench reported on Monday.

The BJP on Monday hit back at Rahul over his remarks targeting Sarma, accusing him of indulging in “vendetta politics” and attempting a “political assassination” using “fake documents”.

BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla alleged that the documents cited by Khera were “fabricated” and “sponsored” by Rahul, accusing him of engaging in the politics of vendetta. “So it is clear as daylight that the documents that were provided to Khera came not just from Islamabad, Pakistan. Those fake documents for the political assassination of Sarmaji’s image and the image of his wife — the daughter of Assam — were actually provided and sponsored by Rahul Gandhi,” Poonawalla said in a video posted
on X.

“Vendetta is when you attempt a political assassination of Sarma using fake documents. Visas were shown as passports, that too photoshopped and forged, belonging to someone else, and a fake company was created. Instead of apologising to the people of Assam, Rahul Gandhi is trying to create a sense of victimhood. This victimhood card will not work,” the BJP leader added. “It is now time for a report card on Gaurav Gogoi’s Pakistani links, his family’s alleged ISIS links. Come clean on that, Rahul Gandhi.”