Himanta now announces probe into Pak climate expert who worked with Gaurav Gogoi’s wife Elizabeth: ‘Involvement in India’s internal affairs’

Gaurav Gogoi on Sunday said the BJP was targeting him and his wife with an eye on next year’s Assam Assembly elections. “The disinformation they are spreading now proves the weakness of the Assam BJP,” he said.

Later in the day, following a meeting of the Assam Cabinet, Sarma said that the DGP was directed to register a case against Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, a Pakistani national who was Director Asia of CDKN from 2009 to 2016. Sheikh is currently a member of the board of directors of Loss and Damage Fund, which had been formalised during COP29; a climate change adviser with the World Bank; a member of the Pakistan government’s task force on Green Financing; and a member of the Pakistan Climate Change Council.

Sarma said, “… a perusal of his social media activity includes exhaustive commentary on India’s internal affairs and parliamentary matters raising serious concerns on the said individual’s intention to compromise and damage India’s interests,” he said.

In the past few days, Sarma and other BJP leaders have highlighted social media posts made by Sheikh over the years in which he seen criticising the Centre and the Assam government over a number of issues.

“Following a scrutiny of his social media activity and information available in the public domain, it appears that Mr Ali Sheikh has been in contact with Shrimati Elizabeth Gogoi, a British national and the wife of Honourable MP from Assam Gaurav Gogoi. Apart from his engagement with the government of Pakistan, Mr Ali Sheikh has founded LEAD Pakistan – a nonprofit organisation working in the field of climate change… Elizabeth Gogoi was an integral part of LEAD Pakistan during her time spent in Islamabad. Further, both of them have been a part of a global climate action group called the CDKN, which operates both in India and Pakistan. The Assam government notes with concern the explicit involvement of a Pakistan-based leader and other actors of a climate action group in matters concerning India’s internal affairs, thereby raising serious questions on its actual intent and operations,” the CM said.

Regarding Elizabeth, Sarma said, “We hope that as a wife of an Assam MP, even if she is a British citizen, she will cooperate in this inquiry, assist us, share her passport, visa and travel documents with us.”

Separately, he also accused her of violating visa conditions by having campaigned for Gaurav in Lok Sabha elections from the Kaliabor constituency in the past.

While Gaurav Gogoi has not reacted to the statements Sarma made on Sunday evening, earlier in the day, he said the CM and the BJP were acting “out of fear”.

“I was aware that they were worried about me after the Jorhat Lok Sabha elections… The disinformation they are spreading now proves the weakness of the Assam BJP. Maybe the Chief Minister is worried about the changes within their organisational structure. The control he had within the party earlier is not there any longer, especially after the Jharkhand election results,” he said, referring to the party recently appointing MP Dilip Saikia as its Assam state president and the BJP’s loss in the 2024 Jharkhand Assembly election for which Sarma was the party’s co in-charge.