Gogoi will be remembered for taking bold steps for Assam, says Himanta Biswa Sarma

Senior Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, once a protege of former chief minister Tarun Gogoi but later revolted and quit the Congress to join the BJP, on Thursday said that history will remember the late leader for taking several bold steps in the interest of the state.

His decisions relating to the insurgency problem resulted in the return of a normal situation in the state while he paved the way for updating of the National Register of Citizens, Sarma said.

After the cremation of Gogoi, a visibly emotional Sarma told reporters that his "death marked the end of an era and his contribution to Assam and its people will always be remembered".

It cannot be denied that "Tarun Gogoi dangoria (Sir) took many strong stands on several issues in the interest of the people of Assam. It can be rightly said that the state has lost a 'mahanayak' (great hero)", Sarma said about his former mentor.

"His immense contribution to the politics and economic development of the state will always be remembered," said the convenor of the North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), the NDA's version in the region, who had a "bitter-sweet relationship" with the three-time former chief minister.

Sarma said he had a very close relationship with Gogoi from 1997 to 2012 when they met almost every day, but after that "it was another chapter when we did not talk much or meet either and today I don't want to talk about this later part".

"His strong decisions on dealing with the insurgency problem resulted in the return of a normal situation in the state as there was a time when people could not go out in the evening," he said.

Gogoi's bold stand against "secret killings" -- the killing of relatives of ULFA militants by unidentified persons -- which had rocked the state before the Congress came to power in 2001, will be remembered in history, he said.

As the chief minister, Gogoi took a bold stand of not allowing secret killings saying that militancy cannot be controlled in that manner, Sarma said.

The former CM's stand of not filing a review petition, following the repeal of the Illegal Migrants Determination by Tribunals (IMDT) Act by the Supreme Court in 2005, was also an important decision in favour of the interests of the Assamese people.

It was an Act to provide for the establishment of Tribunals for the determination of the question whether a person is an illegal migrant to enable the Centre to expel illegal migrants from India.

"There was immense pressure on him from within the Congress party to file a review petition and I had accompanied him to New Delhi to attend a meeting by the then Union law minister.

"He had to face a lot of criticism for this stand but he stood his ground by saying if they did so, it will not be possible to manage the reactions in the state against the party," Sarma said.

The late leader must also be credited for paving the way for updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) as it was in 2005 that the AASU had called a bandh during the visit of the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"The bandh was not something that we could not have managed but Gogoi said that let us call AASU leaders and try to understand what the NRC is all about, following which a tripartite meeting was held which subsequently led to the process of its updating," he said.

The health minister, who did not have much interaction with Gogoi since 2012, however, visited him almost daily at the hospital where he was admitted for nearly four months after he tested positive for Corona and died on November 23 due to post-COVID complications.

"I had told him that Corona is a dangerous disease, he should not interact with the public much. But he was so entrenched in politics and public life that he could not keep himself away from people for long," he said.

He had followed the results of the Bihar assembly elections even when he was not well in the hospital, the Minister said.

Sarma, who had announced Gogoi's death on Monday, was seen supervising the arrangements for his cremation with state honours and had appeared choked with emotions during his visit to the Srimanta Sankardeva Kalakshetra on both the days that the late leader's body was kept there for the public to pay homage.

The minister also laid a wreath and knelt down with his head bowed and touching the ground, where Gogoi's body was laid out at the cremation ground, to pay his final obeisance to the leader.