HIS TIME TO RULE
On the night of March 19, in a government guest house in Sadiya, a town in Assam’s Tinsukia district, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel and All India Congress Committee general secretary in-charge of Assam, Jitendra Singh, were engaged in a strategic discussion over the party’s campaign for the ongoing assembly election in the state. Later that night, Himanta Biswa Sarma, who was leading the BJP’s campaign, sat listening to the 30-minute-long conversation playing on a cell phone of one of his aides. A local Congress leader present at the guest house had secretly recorded the conversation. This incident reflects to what extent Sarma went to ensure a victory for the BJP, a party he joined after quitting the Congress in 2015. Rahul Gandhi had declined to make Sarma chief minister of Assam in place of the incumbent Tarun Gogoi at the time.
Six years after leaving
