Tarun Gogoi treated me like a son, his death a personal loss: Rahul Gandhi

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“He was my teacher, my guru. He explained to me — like nobody can — what Assam is, what people of Assam are, the complexities of this state, the beauty of this state,” he added.

Gandhi emphasised that Gogoi could effectively bring together people of Assam, cutting across communities and ideologies, in an “exemplary way”. He said whenever he met Gogoi, the latter would never discuss himself but about the state and its people.

A lawyer by education and training, Gogoi was elected for the first time to the Lok Sabha in 1971. He had served as Union Minister of State in the 1990s. In 2016, in what turned out to be his final election, he was elected as an MLA from Titabor. He was one of the Northeast’s most prominent political leaders.

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People from across the state, political leaders cutting across parties, and leaders of various socio-cultural organisations visited Kalakshetra to pay their last tributes to Gogoi. “People of Assam will always remember his efforts to bring back peace to Assam… that is his great contribution to the state,” Dipankar Nath, president of the All Assam Students Union, said.