Last week, he said if the Congress got less than seven of 14 Lok Sabha seats in 2014, he would quit. His detractors can't wait.
How did it come to this?
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Because of one man: Gogoi's Education and Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is 42.
Earlier this year, things came to a head when Gogoi attacked Biswa Sarma by name. "I used to trust him a lot. Now he wants to become the chief minister, no less. I am no longer on good terms with him," Gogoi said at a public meeting. Stung into retaliation, Biswa Sarma got together enough dissidents to get a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) convened where it was proved pretty much conclusively that he had more followers in the CLP than the chief minister. The CLP passed a resolution asking for a reshuffle of the government which had not been working effectively. It rejected the CM's assertion that such a resolution would strengthen the Bharatiya Janata Party. After this, in theory, Gogoi should have been sacked, but the dissidents let it be, rumour has it, because Gogoi burst into tears.
Sarma began his political career in the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) but left that made history when in the 2001 Assembly elections, he defeated Bhrigu Kumar Phukan, from the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP). It was in Phukan's tutelage that Sarma was initiated into politics. He joined the Congress, gradually became Gogoi's right hand man - until Gogoi began promoting his son Gaurav who became a member of the Congress in 2012 and is an aspirant for a Lok Sabha seat currently occupied by the chief minister's brother.
In 2010, Gogoi faced serious health problems. He had to undergo complicated cardiac surgery and chatter started about a replacement for him. Sarma began to see some hope. But Gogoi came right back and Sarma sensed he would be out in the cold, waiting for the top job for an unforseeable period in the future.
That's when differences began spilling out in the open, so much so that party General Secretary in Delhi, Digvijaya Singh, had to tell Sarma and his followers to behave.
Desperate, Gogoi decided he needed new allies outside the party for protection. Minorities in Assam were always Congress supporters - until the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) came on the scene. Bitterly opposed to this group, Gogoi had stubbornly ignored its rise, asking in 2006: "Who is Ajmal?". In 2013, the same Gogoi began seeking out the AIUDF leader Badruddin Ajmal, to prevent a possible split in minority votes ahead of the 2014 elections.
Sarma too has other cards in his pack. The AGP, once one of the most powerful organisations in Assam, has begun crumbling and the cadres are looking for new mentors. Sarma sees an opportunity for himself in this. He has age on his side. The chief minister has only his son.
It isn't that Gogoi is incompetent. Far from it. He combines administrative and financial acumen that is rare. In 2001, when he took charge as the chief minister of Assam, the outgoing AGP government had left the state's finances in a mess. Neighbouring militant groups were claiming that Assam was actually a part of Greater Nagaland. And incessant migration from Bangladesh had prompted then Governor Lt General S K Sinha to warn President K R Narayanan in a report that 57 of Assam's 126 Assembly constituencies had shown more than a 20 per cent increase in the number of voters between 1994 and 1997 whereas the all-India average was just 7.4 per cent; and that the Muslim population in Assam had shown a rise of 77.42 per cent over what it had been in 1971 (there was no census in Assam in 1981).
In 2006, Gogoi became chief minister again, largely by dint of putting the finances of the state in order and taking control of law and order. In 2011, he managed to increase the Congress tally.
But now it is all becoming a bit too much for him. As a veteran politician remarked: "We call them the tallest leaders. And then one day, they die of old age. Then, we become bankrupt." The state needs a younger hand at the helm, more creative ideas. What it absolutely does not need is another dynasty.