Assam's chief minister for 13 years, Mr Gogoi has been facing dissidence for over two years now, but the Lok Sabha debacle made his continuation untenable. (File photo)
Congress' top leadership has taken a step forward towards reaching a decision on the fate of Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge will travel to Guwahati tomorrow to interact with the MLAs and gauge their mood.
Officially, the Assam Congress is having a meeting on the issue of rail fare hike but sources say, informally the MLAs are expected to speak to Mr Kharge on the leadership issue.
Assam's chief minister for 13 years, Mr Gogoi has been facing dissidence for over two years now, but the Lok Sabha debacle made his continuation untenable. The party managed just three out of 14 seats in a state where it has been in power since 2001.
The anti-Gogoi camp, led by the state education minister, Himanta Biswa Sharma, have been mounting pressure on the high command to replace Mr Gogoi. They claim that they have more than 45 MLAs with them out of Congress' total of 78 in the assembly. So, even though Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi backed Mr Gogoi earlier, the possibility of a split in Assam has forced a rethink.
Asked for a response at a press conference on Saturday, Mr Gogoi said, "On whether I am being replaced, I won't say yes or no. All depends on the High Command."
On Saturday, the Congress formally started the process of a post-mortem of the Lok Sabha poll rout with senior party leader AK Antony meeting with former Congress MPs from Delhi to find out what went wrong for them in the elections.
Mr Gogoi was scheduled to come to Delhi on Sunday to take part in the review meeting with the Antony committee the next day. The poll review meeting for Assam has now been rescheduled for July 6.