Former Team Anna member and peasant leader Akhil Gogoi formed a political party in 2020. His Raijor Dal contested the 2021 assembly polls and Akhil won the Sibsagar seat. Akhil was general secretary of the Cotton College Students Union and later started his public life as an RTI activist. He formed Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti and for years carried out protest programmes against the then ruling Congress government. He had gone to jail on several occasions. In his protests, he had targeted the then minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.
He won the 2021 assembly polls in absentia as he was in jail. He was arrested on sedition charges in 2019 during the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protest in Assam and was charged for setting up bases for Maoists. Parallels have often been drawn between Akhil Gogoi and the late George Fernandes as the latter won the Lok Sabha polls from Muzaffarpur while he was in jail. Akhil was expelled from the assembly session many times. Akhil projected himself as the voice of Opposition in his first term as MLA. He has been engaged in talks with Congress for an Opposition front to take on NDA. Talks failed on a number of occasions and just days ahead of the filing of nominations, he managed to enter into a seat-sharing arrangement with Congress.
