The Asom Sahitya Sabha’s Tinsukia district delegates left the literary body’s 75th biennial conference at Sualkuchi on Monday morning in protest against chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal’s scheduled arrival.

The Sabha had invited President Ram Nath Kovind, Assam governor Jagdish Mukhi, Sonowal and cabinet minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and they were supposed to attend the open session of the conference on Monday. However, except Mukhi, none of the invitees attended it on Monday.

Sualkuchi conference celebration committee joint secretary Bhubaneswar Das told The Telegraph that the reasons for the invitees not attending the session were not known to them but Sonowal was likely to attend the last day of the conference on Tuesday.

The Sabha’s Tinsukia district committee president Girish Handique, who is also the convener of the constitution amendment committee of the Sabha, said, “We had resolved to boycott the open session if any politician were invited. The central executive body meeting held at Hojai on December 2, 2019, had also unanimously resolved not to invite any politician to the Sualkuchi conference but the Sabha violated its own resolution.”

He said, “Any financial assistance provided to the Sabha by the state government is the tax payers’ money. The government is duty-bound to release funds for public welfare. Hence, there is no point in kneeling down in front of the government to acknowledge their releasing of funds, that too to a literary institution like the Sabha. The Sabha must maintain its sanctity.”

Handique, however, made it clear that the delegates had no problem with the state governor joining the Sabha conference.

“The governor is a constitutional designation. Therefore, we do not have any problem if he attends. Our resolution was taken against politicians attending the conference.”

Notably, Mukhi concluded his speech within eight minutes. He arrived around 12.30pm and left in an hour.

Rubbishing the claim, outgoing Sabha president Paramananda Rajbongshi said, “There was no such resolution not to invite politicians to the Sabha conference. According to the Sabha’s constitution, it can invite the chief minister. Moreover, the chief minister is also one of among us.”

Sources said delegates from other districts also left the Sualkuchi conference venue on Monday, allegedly because of “unfair distribution of recognition award” to the contributors of the Sabha. They said the Sabha should felicitate and distribute recognition awards among those individuals who have contributed in various capacities to the Sabha over the past seven to eight years.

“The list of recipients who were recognised and felicitated at the Sualkuchi conference was quite unfair. It comprised individuals who were neither central executive members nor had contributed to the apex literary body for more than two years,” a source said.

Refuting the allegations, Rajbongshi said, “We provided accommodation for delegates till the last day of the conference but many of them left midway. We selected contributors among those present. You cannot claim that the entire process is unfair.”