North-East Diary: Why Gaurav Gogoi’s appointment troubles the Assam CM so much

The appointment of Gaurav Gogoi as president of the Assam state Congress earlier this week has stirred up fresh interest in the assembly elections due to be held in 2026.

Gaurav Gogoi, son of former chief minister Tarun Gogoi and a Member of Parliament since 2014, is also the deputy leader of the party in the current Lok Sabha.

While his appointment appears to have enthused party workers — Bhupen Borah’s three-year term as state Congress president had ended in 2024 and many observers believe that Gogoi’s appointment has been unnecessarily delayed — and has the approval of much of civil society in the state, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has accused the Congress of foisting a ‘dangerous and compromised’ person in public life.

The CM has upped the ante in his relentless attack on Gogoi of late — including but not limited to calling him a ‘Pakistani agent’ on the payrolls of the ISI. He has even announced the formation of a SIT (special investigation team) to inquire into Gogoi’s alleged ‘anti-national acts’.

In part, this is a reaction to the fact that the demand for Gogoi’s appointment to captaincy of the Assam Congress has been growing since he won the Jorhat Lok Sabha seat in 2024, despite Himanta Biswa Sarma campaigning hard to ensure his defeat. Gogoi defeated the BJP candidate by a margin of over 1.14 lakh votes and dealt a humiliating blow to the chief minister, who nevertheless led the BJP to win 10 of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

However, by finally appointing Gogoi, the Congress has signalled its refusal to succumb to the voluble chief minister’s bullying.

Observers point out that Gogoi’s victory from Jorhat was because of the wholehearted support of ordinary people. The Congress, they say, was no match for the money or muscle power of the BJP or its bullying tactics, replete with threats of withholding welfare schemes if they did not ensure Gogoi’s defeat. The BJP attempts failed, however — and that is why Congress workers believe Gogoi will be able to energise civil society against such tactics again next year.

As for Gogoi, within days of his appointment, the Congress leader has also gone on the offensive on local issues.

He has alleged that family members of Himanta Biswa Sarma own as many as 17 companies in the state and take their place in the richest crust of society with their ownership of tea gardens, media outlets, educational institutions, diversified businesses and prime land. Gogoi has demanded an inquiry into how these companies had cornered government contracts and were favoured by different departments.

Gogoi also raised the issue of illegal rathole mining of coal in the state and pointed out that as many as 239 such mines were working. Under whose patronage have they flourished and why has there been no inquiry instituted by the state government into all of them, he asked.

The Assam Congress chief has also responded to his alleged Pakistan links. His wife is a professional specialising in policy and was employed by an international organisation working on climate change, he noted. She was posted for some time in Pakistan and he himself had visited Pakistan once in 2013, before he became an MP.

Pointing out that external affairs minister S. Jaishankar’s wife was also a foreign national and one of his sons a British national, Gogoi added that nothing Himanta Biswa Sarma says makes much sense.

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In Manipur, Peace is Still Fragile

The five-day Shirui Lily Festival, held after a gap of two years, concluded on 24 May.

Shirui is the state flower of Manipur and endemic to Shirui Valley. Attemps to grow it elsewhere have been unsuccessful and due to changes in climatic conditions and indiscriminate plucking, the rare species is in danger of extinction. A pink flower, it is claimed that under the microscope it can show seven different hues.

Hosted and promoted by Manipur tourism department, the festival, a joyous occasion with music, food, dancing and beauty pageants, reflected this year the scars of the ongoing ethnic conflict and marred by two unfortunate incidents.

Scaling the 9,304-foot Shiruli peak, which is a part of the festival, saw a group of Meiteis, allegedly from a unit of the militant group Arambai Tenggol, hoist the seven-coloured flag representing seven Meitei clans. Tangkhul Naga groups claimed the Meiteis had desecrated a sacred hill, the source of many rivers and streams in the Ukhrul district.

Tangkhul Naga Long, the apex social body of the community, said the act was “an utterly disgraceful and despicable attempt by Arambai Tenggol to politicise the spirit of the festival for petty political gains at the wrong place and at the wrong time”.

The Tangkhul Katamnao Saklong, the apex students’ body, said the festival embodies peace, ecological consciousness, and cultural pride of the Nagas inhabiting the region. “It is, therefore, a grave provocation by a faction identifying itself as the Cobra Team Unit 58,” it said in a statement.

The Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim, or NSCN (I-M), waded into the controversy and asserted that the ‘Salai Taret’ flag had no cultural, historical, or political connection with the Tangkhuls. Arambai Tenggol had once again proved themselves to be nothing but a bunch of ‘warmongers’ provoking peace-loving Tangkhuls,” it added.

In a conciliatory statement, the Arambai Tenggol then sought to defuse the tension. Slogans raised, including ‘Long live, Manipur’, were messages of unity and were not meant to threaten any community, it said. The statement added that the flag should not be construed as a territorial claim or provocation, “just as the display of a country’s flag on Mount Everest in the Himalayas does not imply ownership of the peaks”.

Even as the dispute with Naga groups appeared to simmer down, the Meitei organisation Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI) demanded an apology from the governor and organised protests, rallies, torch-lit processions and sit-ins against the bid to “undermine the identity of Manipur, its name, pride and respect”.

The context? A Manipur State Transport bus carrying media personnel from Imphal to Ukhrul to cover the festival was stopped by central armed forces at a checkpoint 25 km from Imphal.

The security forces apparently insisted that the ‘Manipur State Transport’ banner be masked before proceeding towards Ukhrul. The journalists on board protested and asked why a state transport bus should mask the identity of the state in Manipur itself. Following a stalemate, the team returned to Imphal and made separate arrangements to reach Ukhrul later.

COCOMI has now demanded an apology from the governor over this incident.

While the administration has ordered an inquiry, it has failed to satisfy the protestors who asked why Kuki groups, which had allegedly threatened Meiteis not to cross into ‘their’ territory, were not booked.

Protestors locked up Central government offices in Imphal and put up banners that read, “President’s Rule must stop insulting Manipur’s identity.”

On Monday, 26 May, when governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla returned from New Delhi in the circumstances, he had to be flown directly to the Kangla Fort in an army chopper because of protestors — including women and children — blocking the roads to the Raj Bhavan.

The governor was then driven, under heavy security, to the Raj Bhavan 300 meters away from the fort.

The governor has been administering Manipur since President’s Rule was imposed on 13 February.

These two incidents highlight just how fragile the ‘peace’ in the state still us — and not only how sensitive the issues are, but how geographically restricted the peacemaking has been to urban landscapes at best.

Despite another recent attempt by the BJP to form a government, no viable resolution is in sight.