I don’t bank only on officers’ reports, I also talk to common people, says Gogoi

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With a little over three months left for completing a record three consecutive terms as Assam chief minister, Gogoi on Sunday also asserted that he would win the ensuing assembly elections too. He was speaking at a function where Congress MP and former union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar released ‘The Visionary: The Life and Rise of Tarun Gogoi’ – a picture biography written by Guwahati-based scribe Tinat Atifa Masood.

Gogoi also said that he gained vast experience through his association with political leaders, academicians, artists and the common man. “I have gained vast experience through my association with a wide spectrum of people and getting to know firsthand the problems being faced by them. And this has stood me in good stead over the years,” he said.

Accepting that challenges had become a part and parcel of his life, Gogoi said only those who could take challenges head-on, are capable of achieving success. “Contending with difficulties and overcoming it has become intrinsic part of my life. Confront with challenges and you can forge ahead,” he said.

“Tarun Gogoi is an undisputed leader of Assam for 15 years in a row. He will continue for the next five years too,” Former union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said. He also said that peace had returned to Assam solely due to Gogoi’s untiring efforts.

Describing him as one who always stood for Assamese pride, Aiyar also said, “Gogoi has always stood for Assamese pride. But at the same time he understands Assam and its people, encompassing all communities, all the tribes, and has always adhered himself to the ethos of secularism in the building of contemporary Assam. Simultaneously, he also recognises the identity of every community and its importance in the larger Indian identity,” Aiyar said.

Aiyar also described Gogoi as a leader who could combine the local with the global. “Here is a man who combined in himself the local with the global. From the town of Jorhat to the precincts of the Oxford University, his close association with political leaders and in the company of foreign leaders, academicians and artists, Tarun Gogoi has been the cynosure of all eyes,” Aiyar said.

Reminiscing his days with Gogoi, Aiyar said he had the privilege to know him when he had joined the Prime Minister’s office as a joint secretary to Rajiv Gandhi in 1985. “Tarun Gogoi was at that stage a joint secretary in the AICC and the two of us were asked to arrange the tours that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi wished to undertake in the remote parts of India, in places like the jungles of Madhya Pradesh and the deserts of Rajasthan and the remote islands like Lakshwadeep,” he said.

Recalling the days of the Assam movement over Bangladeshi influx when Rajiv Gandhi sat with the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) students that eventually led to signing of the Assam Accord, Aiyar said, “Once the Assam Accord was signed, Tarun Gogoi had to move out of the AICC and go back to Assam. Although the electoral prospects of the Congress were not favourable at that time, Gogoi plunged headlong into it. As was expected, the student leaders riding on an emotional wave won the elections and formed the government,” he recalled.