You are an MP from Jorhat and are making your assembly poll debut from same place. How does it feel?
I would not have been here if the people of Jorhat had not reposed their faith in me in last Lok Sabha election. During the 2021 election, Congress lost many seats by a narrow margin due to the Opposition vote getting fragmented. This time, we have managed to bring around a strong coalition of six major political parties. There is also a strong undercurrent for change and people want to see a new Assam. We are confident of a Congress-led government coming to power.
Are you confident of repeating the feat of your late father, who led Cong back to power two decades ago?
I am grateful to have had a political mentor and guru and father like Tarun Gogoi. I have learned a lot about Assam and aspirations of its various diverse communities from him. Congress managed to stage a comeback during a period of political struggle in the 2001 elections. Then also it was a BJP government at the Centre and PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee was powerful. In Assam, CM Prafulla Kumar Mahanta was there… And I am grateful that there are many people, seniors in the party, who…tell me about how party leaders used to campaign at that point of time. We do take inspiration from that election.
Your campaigning is centred around ‘Bor Asom’ (Greater Assam). What is the vision about?
Bor Asom is an idea that is very close to the people of Assam. It is a vision that has been espoused by Jyoti Prasad Agarwala, late Bhupen Hazarika, and most recently by late Zubeen Garg. It talks about a strong, vibrant and united Assam, in which the people are prosperous, and they have the power to define their own future. It’s even more important in today’s time, when Assam is ruled by one person and one family and the entire government machinery crushes any voice of dissent against the family. So, we are envisioning to take the power back to the people and make the government work not for one family, but for every person in every village.
You talked about bringing a law to make vilifying a community an offence…
There has been a lot of damage done to Assamese society by the divisive politics of (CM) Himanta Biswa Sharma over the past 10 years. To recover from that wound and to ensure that this never happens again, we want to bring a strong law that would punish any action or any speech that targets and vilifies a particular religious community, be it a Hindu,
Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Jain or Buddhist . At the same time, we would also be focusing on government programmes and policies that encourage people from diverse communities to work together.
Some leaders have left Cong. Will this affect the party in the election?
I think the question ignores the fact that how many BJP and AGP leaders have joined us. Most recently, BJP minister Nandita Garlosa joined Congress. What I see as it is, these most recent defections have only ended up dividing, fracturing BJP house.How many seats do you anticipate for you and your allies?
I do not get into this calculation of seats or winning margins. What we have is a clear vision for Assam, where we want to ensure that women get the benefit of government schemes without being forced to join any political party, where justice for Zubeen Garg is given within 100 days, where the poor people get their permanent land titles within a guaranteed period. Landless people get land. The economy is decentralised so that the small towns and local businessmen thrive.
