A missed oath that reshaped state politics: CM recalls his Cong exit

Guwahati: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday revisited the dramatic political moment of 2014 when he came close to becoming the state CM as Sonia Gandhi’s choice but was stopped short after intervention from Rahul Gandhi.

This twist of fate led hid to exit from Congress and join BJP, a move that reshaped Assam’s political landscape.


Sarma recollected these events in the backdrop of former Assam PCC president Bhupen Borah’s resignation over dissatisfaction with the party’s internal affairs. Sarma said he rarely speaks about why he left Congress, lest people think he still harbours unhappiness over the decision.

Dissidence against then chief minister Tarun Gogoi started in 2014 with the arrival of his son, Gaurav, in Assam’s political scene. The allegations were that Gogoi was promoting his son, a move that is widely seen as the trigger for the rift between Gogoi and Sarma. Gaurav, now an MP and president of the Assam Congress, became the focal point of the internal feud that reshaped the party’s trajectory in the state.

“Cabinet ministers were instructed to attend Gaurav’s meetings. I told Tarun Gogoi I cannot do this because I am holding a constitutional post. Other ministers went and then trouble started,” Sarma, who was then finance minister recollected.

When dissidence reached its peak, the Congress high command deputed senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge to Guwahati as central observer to assess the situation.

“Fifty-eight MLAs supported me, some remained neutral and only 12 MLAs were not in my favour. But, no justice was done then,” Sarma recalled.

Sarma said after this, Sonia Gandhi, whom he still prefers to address as ‘madam’, “called me to her residence and asked me to choose the date of my swearing-in. I had said I would take oath after the Ambubachi Mela at Kamakhya Temple. However, that decision was reversed after Rahul Gandhi, who was in the US at that time, made some calls,” Sarma told journalists in Guwahati.

Gogoi continued to be the CM and Sarma finally quit Congress in 2015 to join BJP the same year.

Reflecting on the episode, Sarma added, “It was the blessings of Maa Kamakhya and Srimanta Sankardeva that I did not become CM then. If I had become a Congress CM, history would have remembered me with disgrace, as I would not have been able to work for Sanatan Dharma or the Assamese people.”