Gaurav Gogoi counters BJP’s infiltration poll plank. ‘Congress deported far more illegal Bangladeshis’

In interview with ThePrint, Assam Congress chief Gaurav Gogoi talks about probe into singer Zubeen Garg’s death, alliance with Raijor Dal and AJP, and accusations levelled by Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Assam Congress chief Gaurav Gogoi in conversation with ThePrint

Jorhat: Assam Congress president Gaurav Gogoi has said the party should have stitched an alliance with its regional allies Raijor Dal and Assam Jatiya Parishad “much earlier”, but maintained that the tie-up, though delayed, has bolstered the Opposition ahead of assembly polls in the state on 9 April.

“I would have liked to ideally wrap up much more earlier, but nonetheless, I am very satisfied with the talks. Never before in Assam’s history has the state Congress allied with so many political parties,” Gaurav said in a wide-ranging interview to ThePrint Monday.

The de facto chief ministerial candidate of the Congress, Gaurav said that if the Opposition comes to power in the state, a decision would be taken in its first Cabinet meeting towards providing “real answers” behind the death of singer Zubeen Garg.

“The entire legal fraternity in Guwahati is unhappy with the investigation. They have been asking many questions, so we really have to provide justice, both to the family and to the supporters,” said Gaurav, hours after filing his nomination following a rally across Jorhat town in Upper Assam, where the Congress is counting on its alliance partners Raijor Dal and AJP to deliver.

“What Zubeen said about BJP, that everybody remembers. There are some words which are extremely unparliamentary that I can’t even repeat in this interview. Those are the words that he used for BJP. So people remember that and understand how Zubeen’s value system is so different from Himanta Biswa Sarma’s,” Gaurav said.

Garg died on 19 September 2025 in Singapore, where he had travelled for an event, with initial reports stating he drowned during a sea outing. His death triggered widespread suspicion in Assam, prompting a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe. A chargesheet was filed and multiple individuals were arrested including those associated with the event. The case is now before a sessions court, with a fast-track trial ordered to ensure day-to-day proceedings amid continued public scrutiny.

In the interview with ThePrint, Gaurav said he had strongly advocated a tie-up with Akhil Gogoi’s Raijor Dal and Lurinjyoti Gogoi-led AJP even during the 2021 state polls, when the Opposition finished with 50 seats in the 126-member Assembly, 14 seats short of the halfway mark.

Floated in the aftermath of the anti-CAA protests in 2020, both Raijor Dal and AJP draw support from ethnic Assamese communities in the Ahom heartland.

They were not part of the Congress-led coalition in 2021. Instead, it included the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), led by perfume baron Badruddin Ajmal. This time, the Congress refused to accommodate the AIUDF in the Opposition alliance, calling it a ‘B-team’ of the BJP.

“The Congress had lost 17 to 18 seats where the Raijor Dal and AJP candidates polled around 7,000 to 9,000 votes each. Back in 2021 itself, I had seen the potential of our alliance, and I am glad that five years later, what I had envisioned then, we managed to come together,” Gaurav said.

The Congress leader, who won from the Jorhat Lok Sabha constituency in the 2024 general election, said Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s attacks on him, his wife and their children over alleged Pakistan links have made them stronger as a family.

“So it has only made us appreciate each other’s roles and value systems that much more. And it exposes the weakness of Himanta Biswa Sarma. It reveals too much about what he perceives as a threat from the Congress party, or about his own hidden insecurity,” he said.

Questioning the motives behind the resignations of former Assam Congress chief Bhupen Borah and sitting Nagaon MP Pradyut Bordoloi from the party and their switchover to the BJP, Gaurav said their exits have, in fact, left the Congress “stronger”.

“A person from AGP (a BJP ally) joined us in Lakhimpur district, where Bhupen Borah comes from. A spark has been lit amongst Congress party workers there. If I go on the ground, I see the Congress party much stronger. I think the Congress party wears a much newer, fresher, stronger, vibrant, progressive look than what it had earlier,” he claimed.

Responding to a question on the BJP’s emphasis on drives against infiltration as the centrepiece of its campaign in Assam, Gaurav asserted that the Congress-led UPA had taken a more hardline stance against illegal migrants, deporting them to Bangladesh in larger numbers.

“The BJP talks a lot, but does even less than what the Congress has done. The Congress might talk less than the BJP on this issue, but it deported far more illegal Bangladeshi people who entered India than PM Modi. We did much more in terms of border fencing than what this government is doing. We did more on making the NRC a foolproof system, but today, the NRC remains inaccurate. So our aim is to solve, as you said, address the anxieties through real work,” he said.

(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)