The CROWN Fits

It took him 30 years to turn into reality what he had promised his then would-be-wife. Himanta Biswa Sarma was 22 and Riniki Bhuyan 17 when they first met. She asked him what she should tell her mother about what he wanted to do in future. “Tell her I’ll be the chief minister one day.”

Sarma, now 52, was sworn in as the 15th chief minister of Assam on May 10, as Riniki watched her husband’s dogged determination finally pay off. “It was politics, politics, politics all the way and yet, as I watched him take oath, I found it hard to believe,” Riniki said.

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Himanta found what would be his calling early on, with the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), delivering his first speech in 1979 when he was 13. He moved on to the big league after joining Guwahati’s Cotton College, one of premiere institutions in Northeast. He was general secretary of the Cotton College Union Society for two successive terms, in 1988-89 and 1989-90 and once again in 1991-92, a record that still stands in his name.

Sarma came to the notice of then Congress chief minister Hiteswar Saikia, when he joined the advisory committee for students and youth welfare as member secretary. The committee was chaired by Saikia. Although Sarma had found his mentor, the relationship did not last long as Saikia passed away during assembly elections in 1996, which Sarma contested from Jalukbari for the first time. He lost to another mentor of his AASU days, Bhrigu Kumar Phukan of AGP. He would defeat Phukan, who had by then crossed over to the Nationalist Congress Party, in 2001. Jalukbari has since become synonymous with Sarma.

“He has always been ambitious, aggressive and dynamic,” remembers Dr Ardhendu Kumar Dey, a former Congress minister who joined BJP ahead of the last elections. Sarma bec­ame a junior minister for the first time in the Tarun Gogoi government in 2002, as deputy to Dey in the agriculture department. “There could be many ambitious people, but it was his aggressiveness and dynamism, that has made Himanta what he is today. If he sets his mind on something, he will make sure he completes the task,” Dey told Outlook. He was also an efficient lawyer. “He had handled a couple of my cases, and I saw how tactfully he went about his work.” A post-graduate in political science, Sarma also graduated in law and later obtained PhD from Gauhati University.

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That he has a sharp mind and could have flourished in law if he had wished was also borne out by then advocate general of Assam, late Amrit Kumar Phookan. Sarma was his understudy. “Once, I had asked him to abridge some matter and confine it to an A4 size page. The original ran into 3-4 pages. I had hardly given him any time as I needed the paper in court the following day. He delivered bef­ore time. I wonder if even I could have done it the way he did,” Phookan had told this correspondent earlier, at a time when Sarma’s name was getting slowly but steadily ent­renched in the public consciousness. Phookan passed away in 2015.

Congress retained power in 2006 and within no time, Sarma became virtually the number two in the ministry, chief minister Tarun Gogoi’s trusted lieutenant. The party once again swept to power in 2011 making it three in a row.

“He had come to my house before the 2011 elections and I had told him he would be the next chief minister,” Dey remembered. But that was not to be, and as time passed Sarma started showing signs of frustration.

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In 2014, Sarma led a dissident faction against Gogoi. It had become clear to him by then that he did not stand a chance to lead the party in the 2016 elections, as neither did Gogoi show any signs of giving up the reins, nor was Delhi in his favour. While Sonia Gandhi reportedly supported him after being briefed by Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi shot down the idea. What bec­ame a matter of concern for him further was Gogoi’s son Gaurav, now a Lok Sabha member, who joined the party in 2012. He was now certain Gaurav would get precedence over him. So finally, in July 2014, he resigned from the ministry. Next year, in August, he joined BJP. The party, which was desperately trying to find a foothold in the Northeast via Assam, lapped him up.

Campaigning for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Sarma had dubbed Narendra Modi a “terrorist”. He had also retorted to Modi’s claim that in Gujarat, water pipes were so huge even a Maruti hatchback could drive through it, saying “blood of Muslims” flowed through those pipes — a clear reference to the 2002 Gujarat riots.

“You said that in Gujarat, a Maruti car can drive through a water pipe… In Gujarat the blood of Muslims flows through these pipes… Pray to Allah to make Bhupen Bora the winner in Tezpur… So this type of killer could never be the PM of India. Pray for it during namaaz too,” Sarma reportedly said at a rally.

After joining BJP, Sarma quickly issued a clarification — what he had said was the Congress party’s views. It was soon forgotten. Adapting seamlessly to new reality is the hallmark of an Indian politician.

When he returned to Guwahati after joining BJP in Delhi, he was welcomed with a cavalcade that stretched for a couple of kilometers. At the party office, after his felicitation, it was time for the “Bharat Mata ki Jai” chant. BJP workers raised both their hands. Not Sarma, though. He raised one and then, with a sheepish smile, said he would soon get used to it.

There was no further slip-up, as Sarma grabbed the opportunity with both hands. His immediate goal was to defeat Congress in the 2016 elections. This was secured with ease. Henceforth, there was no stopping him. Soon, he played midwife to the North East Democratic Alliance, a coalition of regional parties. Arunachal Pradesh, which had a Congress government, went to the BJP overnight, the party coming to power for the first time in the state without having to fight an election. In Manipur, the Congress emerged the single-largest party, but saw the BJP stake claim and form government — again a first for the party in the state. Tripura saw red turn saffron — yet another first. Everywhere he went, Sarma left his indelible print, becoming indispensable for BJP in the Northeast.

The 2021 elections came around, but Sarma had already cried off from contesting. The BJP central leadership called him to Delhi and convinced him to change his decision. As soon as he did, whispers of him having done a deal to be the next chief minister, were BJP to ret­ain power, began to be heard.

The BJP won again with old ally Asom Gana Parishad and the nascent United People’s Party (Liberal). The latter had replaced Bodoland People’s Front in the NDA. During distribution of tickets, Sarma had strategically ensured his men got preference. The BJP did not name a chief ministerial candidate ahead of the polls, even though the Sarbananda Sonowal-led government was perceived to have done well.

The central leadership was now in a dil­emma — who should be made the chief minister? Sonowal could not be wished away, and Sarma could be ign­ored at the party’s own peril. By now, they knew Sarma did not carry the burden of any ideology, and could shed it like a duck shakes off water, even though he had mastered the art of raising both hands while chanting ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’. For BJP, Assam as well as several other states in the North East could be at stake. When the matter was referred to the BJP legislature party, none other than Sonowal proposed his name as the leader. Sarma, it is being said, had around 40 of the party’s 60 MLAs ready to follow him.

Yet, as Riniki would say, Sarma still app­eared a little dazed. “I did not realise I’d be entrusted with such a huge res­ponsibility,” he told her when he finally returned to their room at around 5.30 am — the morning after he was elected as legislative party leader, hours before he would be sworn in.

It was a new dawn.