New Delhi: From the BJP’s “listless” campaign to the “political demotion” of tea garden workers, Gaurav Gogoi, Congress MP-elect from Jorhat, attributes his recent victory in the upper Assam Lok Sabha constituency to various factors.
But most of all, Gogoi feels, Assam Chief Himanta Biswa Sarma unwittingly contributed to his victory by turning it into a prestige battle. “I credit the Assam chief minister for being my star campaigner,” Gogoi told ThePrint in an interview on Monday.
Indeed, Sarma, credited with the BJP’s rise in Assam, left no stone unturned to deny Gogoi a victory in Jorhat, ranging from lining up his cabinet ministers to campaigning in the constituency to using the party’s organisational resources to the hilt.
In the end, Gogoi trounced the BJP’s Tapan Gogoi in the seat by over 1.44 lakh votes. Overall, both the Congress and the BJP’s Lok Sabha tally in Assam remained the same as in 2019 – three and nine seats respectively.
“But these three have a much sweeter taste than the three in 2019,” says Gogoi, the son of late Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, to whom Sarma owes his political rise during his time with the Congress.
But as the late Congress stalwart started promoting his son, Sarma raised the banner of revolt, eventually switching over to the Congress in August 2015, as the party’s high command also continued to back the Gogois. Tarun Gogoi passed away in November 2020, but the rift between the two sides has only deepened.
“The BJP campaign focused on really fighting me personally. So I credit the BJP chief minister for being my star campaigner. Thanks to him and the way his ministers campaigned, I thought I had only one star campaigner which was Priyanka Gandhi. But now I see that I have a lot of star campaigners from the BJP. I do hope that the Chief Minister of Assam and his close ministerial colleagues keep coming to my constituency,” Gogoi said.
He also thanked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for “identifying the true character of Himanta Biswa Sarma”.
Gogoi, who was the Congress’s deputy floor leader in the 17th Lok Sabha, said such was Sarma’s involvement in the BJP’s Jorhat campaign that the party’s candidate Tapan Gogoi found himself completely “isolated and alienated”. Many other senior BJP leaders in the Assam BJP unit have been treated in a similar fashion.
“The problem with the BJP leadership today is that they give more weightage to people who have been inducted from outside and they have totally alienated their ideological base,” Gogoi said.
Following Gogoi’s victory, BJP MLA from upper Assam’s Kumtai, Mrinal Saikia, appeared to criticise Sarma’s style of functioning.
Saikia on 4 June said in a tweet that “the outcome proved that- Money, Big Publicity, Overdose of Leaders and Arrogant Speeches does not always help to win elections”.
#8pm : #ElectionResult2024
Special congratulations to @GauravGogoiAsm for your amazing win. This result is very significant in Jorhatmany ways.The outcome proved that- Money,Big Publicity, Over Doses of Leaders and Arrogant Speeches does not always help to win elections. pic.twitter.com/a7J3WeIpzs
— Mrinal Saikia (From Upper Assam) (@Mrinal_MLA) June 4, 2024
Gogoi said Saikia is among the “hardcore” workers of the BJP who are likely to remain in the party despite voicing their dissent.
“I think what they are saying is the accurate picture that the BJP today in Assam is being led by people who joined the BJP only to continue the behaviour of acquiring properties, assets, buying tea estates, building resorts, buying land near bridges, giving preference to certain contractors, building huge flyovers in Guwahati,” he said.
Gogoi alleged that Sarma is amassing properties and wealth in Assam with the “political blessings of a powerful Union Minister in Delhi who has commercial interests in the region”.
Commenting on the loss of the seats of the BJP and its allies in other states in the Northeast, including Manipur, Nagaland and Meghalaya, Gogoi said the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra had a clear impact in the region.
“I think the voices of dissatisfaction that were present against the NEDA dispensation found a vacant platform in the Congress party. And I think the more the Congress party and the leadership spent time in the Northeast, the more people would come towards us,” Gogoi said.
Gogoi said, going ahead, the Congress would do well to embrace the collective leadership model of Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, K.C. Venugopal, Ajay Maken and Jairam Ramesh to counter Prime Minister Narendra Modi, taking a leaf out of the party’s Lok Sabha campaign. He also expressed hope that Rahul Gandhi will take over as the Leader of the Opposition in the 18th Lok Sabha.
Last week, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) passed a resolution unanimously requesting Rahul to take charge as the LoP, but a decision from him is awaited.
“We have to take the right lesson from this election and we have to take it forward. In the run–up to this election, Kharge ji and Rahul ji met every state unit to identify areas to work on and that’s what we need to do, not only focus on states going to elections in 2024 but also election going states in 2025 and 2026,” Gogoi said.
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