People of Assam will one day want to see CM behind bars: Gaurav Gogoi

Assam Congress MP and the party's deputy leader in Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi on Tuesday launched a sharp criticism of Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, accusing the state government of displacing people across communities through indiscriminate eviction drives and using the land thus vacated for commercial purposes.

Speaking at a press interaction, Gogoi alleged that the campaign to clear land has not spared any section of society — from Bengalis and tribals to minorities, Scheduled Castes, and OBCs. He contended that the exercise, which the government describes as land recovery, has left thousands of families uprooted and opened up opportunities for land-grabbing.

“The chief minister has spared no one in his greed to accumulate property in the name of his family. They (the government) have made people from all communities homeless by bulldozing their houses,” Gogoi was quoted as saying in an Indian Express report.

According to Gogoi, the scale of the displacement has eroded public faith in the administration, causing its popularity to slide. The Congress MP also said people in Assam would one day want to see Sarma “not as the chief minister but behind bars" for what he described as "injustice and misuse of power”.

Gogoi's remarks come against the backdrop of ongoing state-led eviction and land clearance operations. While the government insists that the measures are meant to remove encroachments from state-owned and forest land, Opposition parties have consistently accused the BJP of using them selectively to marginalise vulnerable groups and make commercial use of the land.

Gogoi also questioned the BJP’s decade-long handling of border issues, asking why infiltration continues despite their extended rule. “They have been in power for 10 years, and with border security under their watch, if infiltrators are still coming, then who is responsible?” Gogoi said.

He reiterated the Congress stand: “The Congress party's position is clear, no Bangladeshi should stay illegally in Assam. It is the duty of both the Assam government and the Central government to ensure this.”

Gogoi also accused the state government of exploiting the issue for political mileage instead of acting on it. “Just as his (Sarma's) politics on infiltration failed in Jharkhand, it will also fail in Assam,” he added.

With media inputs