Assam PCC president Ripun Bora on Friday tore into the group, seeking his immediate replacement by accusing it of helping the ruling BJP in the run-up to the Assembly polls next year.

A group of 10 PCC members had moved party president Sonia Gandhi early this month, seeking Bora’s replacement in the “greater interest” of the party, basing their plea on the 2002 Daniel Topno murder case pending against Bora in Gauhati High Court. This group has also claimed that Bora had allegedly furnished wrong information before the Election Commission during his election to the Rajya Sabha in 2016 about no criminal case pending against him.

Bora, who was appointed PCC president in 2016, responded to the allegations against him by asserting that the murder case against him was a political conspiracy and cannot be a disqualification unless a person is convicted in a court of law.

“After the lower court discharged me in 2014 as there was no material evidence against me, the CBI filed a routine revision petition. I am hopeful that I will be cleared by the high court too. I have also been discharged in the CBI bribery case.”

Bora invoked the names of Congress leaders P. Chidambaram, Shashi Tharoor and DK Shivakumar to convey that a lot of political leaders face court cases. Shivakumar was recently appointed Karanataka PCC president despite being in jail on charges of tax evasion, among others.

Bora then said his position is on a par with Union home minister Amit Shah and Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal who faced murder charges but were acquitted by the court.

“Nobody talks about these cases as people have accepted the court’s verdict. Even cabinet minister Himanta Biswa Sarma was dragged in a Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (Tada) case. But the court has cleared him too. I have also been discharged but a section is unnecessarily trying to create an issue out of it.” he added.

In February 2014, the Kamrup district and sessions court discharged Bora in the Topno case, not having found sufficient evidence to frame charges against him.

However, the CBI, which was investigating the case, contested the decision in Gauhati High Court on May 29, 2014. The court has listed the case in April.

Bora said efforts to oust him been on for the past four years but the party high command has persisted with him because of his performance.

“After losing the 2016 Assembly polls, we managed to retain three Lok Sabha seats when the Congress drew a blank in 22 states. Our vote share went up from 29 per cent in 2016 to 37 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Even in the 2018 panchayat polls, we won nearly 50 per cent of the seats. It is not that I have not delivered,” he said.

He also said that the AICC will probe the letter issue because four of the signatories have written to us saying their signatures have been forged.