As a health (and family welfare) minister, he performs fairly well. The government medical hospitals of the State have been renovated in his tenure. Also the serving doctors are made available at odd hours for the benefit of the patients. He deserves appreciation for his performance as the minister for Guwahati development as well. But it is not at all times that Dr. Sharma behaves in a responsible manner. Weeks back, he led a motorcycle rally in support of his Congress party, but forgot to wear the mandatory helmet. When the reporters pointed out his recklessness, the eloquent debater of yesteryears answered promptly, “I have full faith in God and the almighty will protect me from any accident”. Dr. Sharma could not think of admitting his error, which might send a negative signal to the common people and encourage them to violate the Motor Vehicle Act in India.

In a recent election campaign rally, Dr. Sharma went on arguing that the opposition parties in Assam had left no stone unturned to get the credit for all the good work done by the Congress led government at Dispur. According to him, the main opposition party AGP had done nothing for the people during its two tenures at Dispur. He said that the AGP leaders always claimed the fruits of many schemes which were actually launched by the Congress. In the middle of his heated speech, Dr. Sharma uttered, “I will not be surprised, if the AGP president tomorrow claims my wife as his own.”

In the latest of Dr. Sharma’s long list of controversies, following the heat of criticism among the political parties, Dr. Sharma addressed a press meet at Rajiv Bhawan in Guwahati, where he distributed the call records of Hiranya Saikia, to justify his claim that Mr. Saikia initiated an inherent electoral tie up among three opposition parties including Asom Gana Parishad, Bharatiya Janata Party and Asom United Democratic Front to ensure the defeat of Congress candidates in the Lok Sabha polls.

Dr. Sharma claimed that Mr. Saikia, a member of the People’s Consultative Group formed by the banned United Liberation Front of Asom was in constant touch with many senior leaders of these parties in the last few days before this press meet.

Even though the AGP and the BJP had the formal electoral tie up this time, Dr. Sharma asserted

that, they tried to achieve an inherent understanding with the AUDF, which is a minority interest oriented political party, with Mr. Saikia’s help.

This press conference was telecast live by a Guwahati based satellite channel News Live, where the minister specifically informed that he got the call details of Mr. Saikia’s personal phone from a ‘journalist friend’. The programme passed off coolly, but it aroused a pertinent debate among the media persons in Guwahati as to whether a journalist has the ethical, moral and legal right to trace someone’s call list and submit it to a minister. Mr. Rajdeep Sardesai, the editor-in-chief of CNN-IBN and also the president of the Editor’s Guild of India along with Mr. D. N Bezboruah, a senior Assamese journalist and the former president of the Editor’s Guild have termed the act as unethical.

Mr. D. N Chakrabarty, former editor of Dainik Asom has called the journalist a ‘black-sheep in the profession’. “He (or she) should be condemned in the strongest words. Moreover, the behaviour of the minister was also equally unacceptable. The minister should not try to use a journalist for his vested interest,” Mr. Chakrabarty added.

Critical comments on the tainted scribe also poured in from independent journalists from all parts of the country. Even Bangladeshi editors expressed shock that a journalist can collect such private information and then submit it to a minister. Mr. Mustafa Kamal Majumder, editor of The New Nation (a Dhaka based English daily), argues that if someone collects such information for exclusively journalistic purposes, that may be debated (and justified). But once it is sent to a minister, the said journalist has lost all moral values and should not be involved in the profession of journalism any more.

Mr. Paritosh Mukhopadhyay, general secretary of National Federation of Newspaper Employees, termed the act of the journalist as ‘immoral, unethical and illegal’. Speaking from Kolkata to this writer, he asserted that the tainted journalist should be dragged into court under the Press Council laws. He also insisted that the issue must be brought to the notice of the Information and Broadcasting ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office.

Meanwhile, the Journalists’ Forum, Assam is demanding for the identity of the journalist, who had submitted the mobile call list to the minister. In a statement, issued by the JFA chief Rupam Baruah it said, “It is shocking that, a journalist can go and collect someone else’s call list, which is illegal in India, and even submit it to a minister ignoring the media ethics!”

The forum was critical of Dr. Sharma as well saying, “For the sake of argument, even if the call list was collected by the minister from a competent authority with legal formalities, the JFA demands a public apology from Dr. Sharma, as he tried his best to defame the integrity of journalists.

“A minister must not consider the media persons as his slaves, who may be used according to his choice. After all, a prominent minister like Mr. Sharma should behave with responsibility and maintain minimum honour to the media,” the statement concluded. However, the young minister remained silent on the identity of the tainted scribe.

Hitting back at Dr. Sharma, Mr. Hiranya Saikia alleged that the minister indulged in an illegal act by attempting to intrude into his personal life. Saikia has already sent a legal notice to Reliance Telecom for providing his call list to somebody else.

Meanwhile, the leaders of AGP, BJP and AUDF termed Dr. Sharma’s revelation as baseless. Moreover, both the AGP and the BJP had lodged a complaint in the office of the Election Commission demanding legal action against Dr. Sharma. The senior BJP leader S. S Ahluwalia, while talking to local reporters in Guwahati garbaged the allegation and counter charged Dr. Sharma of illegally collected the call records of an individual. The BJP Prabhari for Assam also asserted that the act revealed the misuse of the government machinery by the minister.

The AGP general secretary Mr. Kamala Kalita, after denying the allegation of Dr. Sharma, challenged the minister to disclose the source of the call records of Mr. Hiranya Saikia. Mr. Kalita also informed that the regional party would send a legal notice to the telecom company too for its irresponsible act.