Singed by Bhupen Borah’s exit, Gaurav Gogoi now insinuates he was passing information to Himanta
Former Assam Congress president quit the party despite his colleagues trying to persuade him; CM says he will join BJP on February 22.
Gaurav Gogoi expressed surprise over Bhupen Borah’s rapid shift from Congress to BJP and questioned his credibility. (File Photo) Two days after Congress leaders rushed to persuade its former Assam president, Bhupen Borah, to withdraw his resignation from the party, current Assam president Gaurav Gogoi on Wednesday hit out at him, saying how quickly he switched to the BJP is surprising.
“The person who two days ago was travelling in Majuli with us, was visiting various parts of Guwahati with us, and within one day welcomed (Chief Minister) Himanta Biswa Sarma to his home like a groom… I must question the value that his words carry. He has undermined his own words. I thought that all these events would take place a little later, closer to the elections. But it happened so early,” he said.
“Bhupen Borah had said a few weeks ago that he is ready to take the oath in front of Maa Kamakhya Temple and Bordua Than and say that in this lifetime, he will never join the BJP. Now, how much value can the words of a person who can break his oath have,” he said.
Borah, who has been with the Congress for 32 years and was its state unit president from 2021 until last year when Gogoi took charge, submitted his resignation to the party leadership on Monday, and met Chief Minister Sarma in his house the next evening, after which Sarma announced that Borah will join the BJP on February 22.
Among other things, Borah has called his resignation a matter of “self-respect”, a result of being ignored within the party and of being sidelined by what he alleged is control exercised by MP Rakibul Hussain within the Assam Congress.
After he had submitted his resignation, senior leaders, including Gogoi; AICC General Secretary and in charge of Assam, Jitendra Singh; Leader of the Opposition in the Assam Legislative Assembly, Debabrata Saikia; MP Pradyut Bordoloi; and AICC National Secretary and Assam co-in-charge, Manoj Chauhan, had visited Borah’s home to urge him to change his mind. Jitendra Singh had announced that the Congress had not accepted his resignation, and Gogoi had said that they sought forgiveness if they had “unknowingly caused hurt” to him.
Over the years, Chief Minister Sarma has asserted that he has informants within the Congress – a party he was with for over two decades before joining the BJP in 2015 – and claims to know insider decisions and workings in the party.
On Wednesday, Gogoi questioned Borah’s role in this stream of information to the Chief Minister.
“There are many questions in people’s minds. How do journalists close to the Chief Minister find out about things within the Congress? Many doubts and questions were there. They had told us too, but we didn’t want to believe them (about Borah being close to Sarma)… But the way in which the people who had fought for so long against the BJP had some problems within the Congress and joined the same BJP within a day… Did not wait for even one day. Chanakya had spoken about criticism, money, the stick, and creating divisions. I believe that two of these weapons have been used on Bhupen Borah,” he said.
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