Gaurav Gogoi: The son rises in the East

It was a few minutes to 12 noon on August 8, when the Opposition was to kick off the debate in the Lok Sabha on the no-confidence motion against the BJP government. Rahul Gandhi was expected to open the innings for the newly-formed I.N.D.I.A alliance.

But when the time came, Rahul turned towards Gaurav Gogoi, who then made it his moment in the Lok Sabha, holding the Floor with his pincer attacks on the Narendra Modi government for its failure to address the three-month-long raging Manipur issue.

After all, Rahul had decided not to steal the limelight from Gaurav on day one of the debate on the no-confidence motion.

The treasury benches were breathing fire and even Home Minister Amit Shah was on his feet. But the 42-year-old stood his ground for 40 minutes. His colleagues would later say that the speech was his best so far.

The ripples were felt miles away in Guwahati, where Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswas Sarma promptly called him a “bachcha” (child, in this context an amateur) who did not know the history of North-East insurgency. Sarma was not one to easily get rattled, but he could not ignore the growing appreciation for his mentor’s son.

A reluctant entrant

An unusual choice for some assignments in the Congress, Gaurav was a reluctant entrant into politics, despite his father, Tarun Gogoi, being a three-term Chief Minister of Assam. An electrical engineer with a masters degree in public administration from New York University, Gaurav first worked in Airtel for some time in the mid-2000s before joining a Delhi-based NGO ‘Pravah’.

Gaurav took his baby steps into politics in 2012 after his father convinced him to take the plunge. Tarun Gogoi had said in 2012: "He wanted to remain in an NGO and do social work, but I argued with him that being in politics, he can do more work for society."

A year later, he married British-born Elizebeth Colebourn. He has two children, Kabir and Maya.

Two years later, in 2014, his uncle Dip Gogoi vacated the family's pocket burrow, Kaliabor, for Gaurav, who went on to win by a margin of 93,874. But by then, he also became a “problem” for some. Sarma was one of them, as he felt he should have succeeded the senior Gogoi, but he had actively begun promoting Gaurav.

The Gogois had the ears of Gandhis, especially Rahul. Former Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad recalled in his memoirs that the father-son duo was at Rahul’s residence when Sarma was told that he could leave if he wished. Sarma later left the Congress and joined the BJP in August 2015.

In 2019, when the Modi wave peaked and the Congress was decimated in Assam, Gaurav stood tall with a victory margin of 2.09 lakh.

Though from a privileged background, Gaurav never shied away from a direct attack on the BJP. In Parliament, he joined slogan-shouting MPs in the Well of the House. “This might be one thing that the Gandhis noticed. He is not like some other princelings who make noise about maintaining decorum,” one of Gaurav’s Lok Sabha colleagues said.

The rise

Putting a premium on him, the party awarded Gaurav significant assignments. He was made Bengal in-charge, and given membership in important Parliamentary Standing Committees like Railways, Defence and Finance as well as in Joint Committees on bills like Personal Data Protection Bill, Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill and Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill.

The Congress made him the party deputy leader in Lok Sabha, too. A senior Congress leader said Gaurav was at the right place at the right time.

Gaurav had just been dropped as Bengal in-charge – the intrigues of Bengal Congress politics was beyond him – thus losing his seat in Congress Working Committee. Meanwhile, the party was scouting for the Lok Sabha deputy leader.

The senior Congress leader told DH that Manish Tewari was the automatic choice, but by signing the G-23 letter, he had made a “blunder” and opened the doors for Gaurav, who was made Deputy Leader. Young Gaurav was chosen for a position in August 2020, which was occupied by a senior leader like Amarinder Singh from 2014 to 2017.

When the latest no-trust motion came, Congress sources said the party once again turned to Gaurav, and not Tewari or Shashi Tharoor, known for their oratory skills. That he is from the North-East did count, but it was the trust factor that went in his favour, sources said.

“I did not ask anything from the party. I did not tell the party that I will open the debate. Neither did I request the party to make me part of the process to select candidates for Rajasthan,” Gaurav said last week.

The Congress politician has a special interest in education, health, sports, environment and foreign policy, and always thinks about drawing youth into these areas. He intervened in a number of debates – a total of 154 debates to his credit – in Parliament.

An 'outsider'?

A common complaint against him is that he spends more time in Delhi and is not so fluent in Assamese like his father, a factor that may matter in a state with strong regional sentiments.

A senior Guwahati-based journalist, who has followed the Gogoi family, said Tarun Gogoi, too, was not so active in Assam when he was a Central minister. But when the party needed a leader in the state, they chose him. “Same will be the case for Gaurav. The fact that he belongs to the Ahom community will always attract the indigenous communities,” he told DH.

Gaurav is not perturbed by the sudden interest in him or the criticism. He said he was grateful to the people, who found his speech impressive. “I hope to be an even better Parliamentarian. I am confident that I can do better. I will continue to raise the aspirations and concerns of Assamese people, irrespective of language, religion, ethnicity, age or gender,” he told DH.