From Gogoi aide to BJP ‘prize catch’

If Himanta Biswa Sarma is to be believed, playing with dogs at a party meeting in Assam cost Congress scion Rahul Gandhi the state.

Mr Sarma claims that two years ago, when he tried to warn the Congress vice-president of the party’s downward slide, he kept playing with his dogs and apparently replied, “So what ”

Humiliated and seething, Sarma walked out of the party he had been with for 23 years and joined hands with its arch political rival, the BJP. The rest is history.

Mr Sarma, often regarded as one of the most influential politicians in Assam, was a prize catch for the BJP. It was he who once drove four BJP MLAs to the Assembly for reportedly cross-voting in the Congress’ favour in the RS polls. Often regarded as a maverick, he was former chief minister Tarun Gogoi’s “trusted lieutenant”, till Mr Gogoi brought his son and tried to project him as the next face of Assam. Mr Sarma, who was reportedly being groomed to take over the reins from Mr Gogoi, felt betrayed. When his attempt to knock on the doors of Mr Gandhi was met with the strong and “humiliating rebuff”, he began plotting revenge. He was one of the few state leaders who apparently had direct access to Congress president Sonia Gandhi. He not only joined hands with the BJP, but persuaded Congress’ ally, the Bodo People’s Front, to follow him to the saffron camp. Like the Pied Piper, he then lured the Asom Gana Parishad to the BJP table.

The combination of the BJP-BPF-AGP created history and, for the first time, the lotus bloomed in Assam.