 "Tarun Gogoi, RSS, Rahul Gandhi, Parliament")
Battling anti-incumbency and age, Tarun Gogoi failed to weave his magic to bring Congress back to power after creating history earlier with a hat trick in the last elections.
With once-favourite party colleagues turning bitter foes, the 80-year-old party veteran waged a lonely battle but could not stem the tide against the Congress.
Credited with bringing the dreaded United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) to the negotiating table, hauling out Assam from the brink of bankruptcy and putting it back on the track of development and progress, 80-year-old Gogoi's third term in office was marked by dissidence led by his former blue-eyed boy and powerful politician Himanta Biswa Sarma.
Sarma, who was nursing hopes of becoming the state chief minister, led a revolt along with a section of Congress MLAs after the last Lok Sabha polls in 2014, but Gogoi, who enjoys the confidence of UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, continued in office by effecting a reshuffle in the ministry.
Sarma resigned as minister, from the party and also from the Assembly before joining the Bharatiya Janata Party taking along nine MLAs close to him, who were later disqualified as MLAs and this dealt a major blow to both Gogoi and the Congress, which hurt the prospects in the Assembly polls considerably.
The Congress' ally in the second and third term, the Bodoland Peoples' Front (BPF), also left the alliance in the later half of the third term, affecting the ruling party's prospects in the Bodo dominated areas. Additionally, Gogoi ensured an alliance with the United Peoples' Party, which is opposed to the BPF, in the just concluded assembly polls.
Notwithstanding the genial smile and a straight-forward approach, Gogoi, who has also served as an Union minister twice and a six term Lok Sabha MP from the state, possesses a keen political acumen and comes across as a visionary who means business while taking steps for the development of Assam.
The highlight of Gogoi's 15-year rule was bringing several militant outfits of the state, including the banned ULFA, to the negotiating table, ensuring financial stability of the state government and turning around the state's economy by implementation of various schemes, particularly in the rural areas.
Barring sporadic incidents of violence, mostly by the NDFB(S) and the Bodo-Muslim conflict in BTAD areas, Gogoi's third term in office witnessed a relatively violence-free tenure with the chief minister claiming that a much improved law and order situation in the state was his single greatest achievement of his three terms in office.
Gogoi took over the reins of the government for the first time on May 17, 2001, from the then ruling Asom Gana Parishad and was faced with the onerous task of bringing the state out of the morass of militant violence and financial instability characterised by a huge debt burden with even government employees not receiving their salaries on time.
Gogoi's initiative in this direction paid dividends, with the Congress returning to power for the second consecutive term, albeit with lesser seats, and formed the government in alliance with its coalition partner BPF.
Gogoi's second term as chief minister was a mix of highs and lows, with the multi-crore North Cachar Hills fund diversion scam creating embarrassment but he successfully countered it by bringing several militant organisations like the ULFA, NDFB (Pro-talk group), DHD, UPDS and others to the negotiating table.
Plagued by ill-health during the last year of his second term, Gogoi underwent three complicated heart surgeries – a bypass, aortic valve replacement and enlargement of the aorta procedure – at Mumbai's Asian Heart Institute. He again underwent a surgery for replacing his pace maker just a few weeks before campaign began for the Assembly polls in 2011. In both cases, he recovered fast and took over charge of both office and election campaign with renewed vigour.
During this year's Assembly polls, however, Gogoi led from the front addressing the highest number of public rallies and meetings without giving an inkling about his ill-health or advancing age, despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi harping on several occasions on him being "too old who must go".
