India, Feb. 17 -- Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday claimed that senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi had, in 2014, asked him to choose a date for taking oath as the party's chief minister when 58 MLAs supported him for the post. However, Sarma claimed, the situation changed after Rahul Gandhi, who was then in the United States, intervened through a series of phone calls.

Sarma later left the Congress, before joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in 2015 following differences with the party leadership and amid allegations that then chief minister Tarun Gogoi was promoting his son, Gaurav Gogoi, now an MP and president of the Assam Congress.

"Sonia Gandhi had called me to her residence and asked me to choose the date...