Why Himanta Biswa Sarma is proposing five national capitals

The war of words on Twitter between Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma over the state of schools and hospitals under their watch has taken a strange new turn. The Assam CM on Monday proposed five national capitals, one for each zone.

Sarma's logic behind this proposal was that this would be needed to end regional disparity in the country.

"Having been engaged in a dialogue with Delhi CM Shri @ArvindKejriwal, who's by now in habit of mocking at other states, I'm of the view that we should work on curing the disease of disparity, and not mock poor states. Can we have 5 Capitals of India, one in every zone?" Sarma tweeted.


Sarma went on to explain in further tweets that this would ensure that governments like Delhi do not have "huge wealth at their disposal" vis a vis North East and states from East.

Sarma had earlier alleged that Kejriwal was comparing the national capital with smaller cities in Assam and the Northeast to hide his "failure".

The two chief ministers have been engaged in a Twitter spat since last week, starting on the day Kejriwal criticised the Assam government's decision to amalgamate schools.

Sarma then mocked Kejriwal saying he did not do his homework, and that he was ignorant about the "good work" done by the Assam government ever since Sarma was in charge of education.

Kejriwal then replied that he would like to visit Assam to see for himself the "good work" done by the state government, to which Sarma mockingly referred to the summons issued by a local court in defamation case against Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia.

During the course of their Twitter spat, they repeatedly referred to the work they did in the fields of education and health, each CM claiming he had done better than the other.