New Delhi: The Congress high command has failed to placate the Assam unit’s ex-chief Bhupen Borah, who resigned Monday, alleging that incumbent state unit president Gaurav Gogoi had failed to offer a “clear response” to “serious allegations” of his alleged links with Pakistan—charges brought by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.
In a letter to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Borah underlined that the allegations against Gogoi had inflicted the “gravest injury” on the Congress party in Assam, where elections are due in two months.
On Tuesday evening, Sarma is expected to meet Borah, who now claims not to be associated with any party, after which Borah is likely to announce his political future.
“The opaque circumstances surrounding those (Pakistan) visits, and the air of reticence that has since prevailed, have inevitably placed him under scrutiny. I had urged that he address the matter forthrightly and dispel any doubts. Instead, the hesitation and equivocation have only deepened public misgivings. In politics, perception often carries as much weight as reality, and silence rarely serves as an adequate defence. The image of the Congress party stands gravely impaired, its credibility diminished…” Borah wrote.
Borah has also accused Gogoi of being under the spell of Lok Sabha MP Rakibul Hussain.
The CM’s charges were largely based on an Assam government SIT report submitted in 2025. While the Assam government has referred the case against Gogoi to the Ministry of Home Affairs, citing jurisdictional constraints on state police, Gogoi has dismissed the charges.
Gogoi has maintained he went to Pakistan in 2013 on a private visit with his wife, Elizabeth Colburn, a British citizen who worked with an international NGO in Pakistan in 2011.\
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Borah’s letter: ‘Loyalty met with disregard’
In his letter to Kharge, Borah, who won twice as an MLA from the Bihpuria constituency and lost the 2016 and 2021 assembly polls, said that the Congress’s woes were compounded by the “prevailing perception” in Assam that Rakibul Hussain, who won the 2024 Lok Sabha polls by a margin of 10.12 lakh votes against AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal in the Muslim-majority Dhubri constituency, is steering the state unit.
Borah was entrusted with heading the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee after the party’s second consecutive election debacle in the state in 2021. However, in May 2025, the party replaced Borah with Gogoi, the son of former three-term Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi.
The move did not sit well with Borah, who mentioned it in his letter to Kharge.
Borah blamed Hussain for orchestrating a campaign against him after the Panchayat polls, in which the Congress performed dismally, following which Borah was removed as state unit chief.
“In the Panchayat elections, candidate selection was entrusted directly to the district Congress committee presidents, rendering the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee leadership, including me, as president largely ornamental in that process. This occurred under explicit direction from the AICC, as personally conveyed by the AICC General Secretary duo, Sri Jitendra Singh ji and Syed Naseer Hussain,” Borah wrote.
Borah added that despite being denied a meaningful supervisory role, in the aftermath of the poll debacle, he was held accountable and “unceremoniously” removed from the post of president, following a purported signature campaign led by Hussain.
“Conventionally, an APCC president is afforded the opportunity to lead the party into an assembly election,” Bohra said in his letter. “I alone was deprived of that honour without discernible fault. Even then, I welcomed Sri Gaurav Gogoi with courtesy and extended my fullest cooperation. Yet my loyalty and discipline were met with disregard, a sentiment I communicated to the appropriate leadership within the AICC.”
Borah added that his disagreements with Gogoi predate the latter’s appointment as Assam Congress president, highlighting his strategic efforts to move the Congress away from its alliance with the All India United Democratic Front because he believed that being associated with the AIUDF allowed the BJP to “polarise” voters—with “pro-minority” labels—which harmed the party’s prospects in elections.
On the other hand, the Assam Sanmilito Morcha, a coalition of 16 parties, including the Congress, which Borah was leading, had wanted to field a CPI(ML) candidate in the Behali assembly bypoll in 2024, but the Gogoi faction pressured the central leadership to field a Congress candidate instead, leading to the collapse of the alliance.
Borah’s letter said it was “profoundly disconcerting when Sri Gaurav Gogoi introduced into the electoral fray an individual who had previously sought the BJP nomination from the Behali assembly constituency, and who was accorded the INC ticket even before formally joining our ranks”.
“This development wounded the sensibilities of our alliance partners and precipitated the collapse of the coalition, compelling me to relinquish the chairmanship of the alliance.”
Jayanta Borah, a former BJP leader who joined Congress just before the polls, was finally fielded by the Gogoi faction. The Congress’s vote share in Behali did increase in the election, but its candidate lost to the BJP by 9,051 votes.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)