Mahanta denies secret marriage

By Barun Das Gupta

GUWAHATI, AUG. 16. Former Assam Chief Minister and AGP president, Mr. Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, said today he would take legal action against the newspapers which were carrying on a campaign of calumny against him, linking him to a junior employee of the State Assembly and alleging he had `secretly' married her in Mumbai last march.

Mr. Mahanta had invited a select group of reporters this afternoon to his residence where he and his wife, Mrs. Jayashree Goswami Mahanta, received them.

Mr. Mahanta said it was significant that he and some other former ministers of his Cabinet were being sought to be implicated in one sex scandal or the other simultaneously.

He suspected that this was part of a `conspiracy to destroy regional politics and the regional party (AGP) in Assam.' He would not rule out the hand of the Congress in planting these stories.

Mrs. Mahanta said they had been happily married for the last 14 years. She asked why the story of her husband's `second marriage,' which reportedly took place in March, was being spread now, after five months.

There were conflicting versions on the `secret marriage.' The date of the marriage was initially stated as March 11 but on some other times it was quoted as March 21.

The venue was first mentioned as Ganesh Mandir but later as some other temple.

Mr. Mahanta said during the period he was Chief Minister, he was always surrounded by securitymen and officials and there was no way he could have married someone `secretly.'

Mr. Mahanta said that on August 14 he had `temporarily' handed over charge of the party president to the senior vice-president, Mr. Biraj Sharma, because he was to be out of Assam for about two months. ``But now I will leave only after I have filed the libel suits,'' he said.

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