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NEW DELHI, MAY 14: ASSAM is at peace now but more needs to be done to bring investments, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has said, alleging that the BJP-led central government had failed to bring logical end to the ongoing talks with ULFA militants.
In an interview to IANS, Gogoi said that while the peace talks with the moderate faction of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) were on “it appears that the (central) government is not making as much efforts” to bring a desired conclusion to the process in the larger interest of the state as well as the country. The effort, he added, was required for overall peace and development of the border state ravaged by decades of violence.
“Sooner it (the Assam issue) is resolved, the better it is for the state,” Gogoi told IANS.
Gogoi, 81, has been heading the Congress government in Assam for the last 15 years. It was at the start of his third term as the chief minister that a faction of the ULFA militant group signed an agreement in September 2011 to suspend its violent activities and start peace negotiations with the state and central governments.
P.C. Haldar, a former Intelligence Bureau chief, has been brokering peace talks with the ULFA faction led by Arabindo Rajkhowa. The then ULFA chairman was earlier arrested with the help of the Bangladesh government in November 2009.
However, little has been achieved in a series of peace talks with the ULFA that began in February 2011. The hardline ULFA faction led by Paresh Baruah, an elusive rebel commander, has been opposing the talks and is reluctant to give up its demand for a sovereign Assam.
Gogoi said that any negotiation with the Baruah-led faction was impossible till it “gives up the path of violence and demand for a separate state”.
He said with Baruah “There is no chance. I have my doubts. Even if he comes for talks, he is most welcome. Definitely, we want to (talk to him). But, he has to shun the violence first.”
Gogoi counted “peace” in Assam as one of his biggest achievements during his 15-year rule.
“Peace has returned in Assam. Without peace no development can take place. A sense of security has also arrived. When there is security, people will invest. And when investments come, the economy will pick up. Restoration of peace has been the most significant event that has happened in Assam.”
Gogoi has also penned an autobiography: “Turnaround -- Leading Assam from the Front”, published by Harper Collins, chronicling his journey through his three consecutive terms -- from 2001 to 2016 -- and how the Assam story has changed from “headlines about brutal killing to a state that is building smart villages and inviting investments for industrial and social development.”
Assam went to polls on April 4 and 11 to elected a new government. The results will be out on May 19. Gogoi is expecting to return to power for a fourth term.
‘Narasimha Rao didn’t respond to my letter on Babri’
NEW DELHI: P.V. Narasimha Rao instituted several reforms during his tenure as prime minister, but “he did not have a hold over” his Congress party. And when Tarun Gogoi, who was the food minister, wrote to him criticising his handling of the Babri mosque demolition, he failed to get a response.
Assam Chief Minister Gogoi, recalls in his book ‘Turnaround - Leading Assam from the Front’, how he felt that the handling of the December 1992 Babri Masjid demolition by then prime minister Rao was “not appropriate”.
“Narasimha Rao was a modern man, and several reforms were initiated during his tenure. He did not interfere with the work of his ministers. As food minister, I took most of my decisions myself,” writes Gogoi, who is Assam chief minister since 2001.
The book is scheduled to be launched here on Saturday. “However, Rao did not have a hold over his party. I feel the way he handled the Babri Masjid demolition was ‘not appropriate’. Breaking all conventions as a minister, I even wrote a letter telling him that he should not have allowed this to happen. He should have taken the leaders of the minority community into confidence,” Gogoi writes.
“I was very critical as the demolition alienated the minorities from us. However, he did not respond to my letter.”
Gogoi also recalls that as food minister in the Rao government he allowed the entry of multinational companies Coca-Cola and Pepsi into India.
“Our government decided to open up the economy to foreign investments, and I took a decision to allow the entry of Coca-Cola and Pepsi into India. I felt it was a good opportunity to tell the international community that the Indian economy was opening up and willing to engage with global businesses,” Gogoi writes.
“The opposition was vehement in its criticism, but I stood firm. In 1993, I was shifted to the union food processing ministry, through which I gained great international exposure,” he writes.