Guwahati, May 1: A week after Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi accused former chief minister and AGP(P) president Prafulla Kumar Mahanta of allegedly approaching the Congress high command and asking for money to help defeat the parent Asom Gana Parishad, the main regional party has hit back saying Gogoi and the Congress are worried as the AGP factions are coming together under one umbrella. “The Congress is scared of the AGP and other regional factions reuniting. The party is mired in a series of controversies and the Mani Kumar Subba episode is only one of them,” AGP executive president Phani Bhushan Choudhury said here on Thursday.

Gogoi’s allegation against Mahanta came at a time when the parent AGP was holding parleys with the breakaway AGP(P), Trinamul Gana Parishad (TGP) and other factions for exploring possibilities of reuniting all the groups under the AGP umbrella.

“The CBI’s exposure of Congress MP Mani Kumar Subba’s forgery and dubious past is enough to expose the party,” the AGP leader said. He also pointed out a series of internal bickering the Congress suffered in the recent past, especially with senior MPs Kirip Chaliha and Silvius Condpan and former Rajya Sabha members Dwijen Sharma and Bishnu Prasad reportedly lodging a complaint with Sonia Gandhi against Gogoi. The dissident MPs, led by Chaliha, who represents the prestigious Guwahati Lok Sabha constituency, met Congress president Sonia Gandhi last week and sought a change in the state leadership and revamp in the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee.

Meanwhile, Mahanta, reacting to Gogoi’s allegation, said he had never met Sonia after the death of Rajiv Gandhi. “I had met her way back when her husband was alive,” he said, terming Gogoi’s allegation as defamatory.

Mahanta and Choudhury have accused Gogoi of resorting to politics of blackmailing by referring to the “secret killings” and threatening to take legal action against Mahanta. “Why does he repeat the threats pertaining to the so-called secret killings? Does he dare to actually initiate any action?” Mahanta asked.

Meanwhile, the regional party on Thursday asked the state Government to provide information about an FIR and case diary of the Chandmari police station in Guwahati in which a senior minister of the present Government was arrested, allegedly on charges of extortion in the name of ULFA, way back in 1991.