After 25 years in Assam Assembly, Himanta opens up on political challenges from ULFA to CAA and Zubeen Garg’s death

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has opened up about the biggest political and emotional challenges he faced over the last 25 years in Assam politics, ranging from massive public support for ULFA in the early 2000s to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) agitation, the COVID-19 pandemic and the emotional aftermath following the death of singer Zubeen Garg.

In an exclusive interview after taking oath for a second consecutive term as Chief Minister and completing 25 years in the Assam Assembly on May 13, Sarma reflected on how every five-year political phase brought a completely different challenge for the government.

Speaking to India Today magazine’s Managing Editor Kaushik Deka, Sarma said the period between 2001 and 2006 was dominated by strong public support for ULFA, especially across Upper Assam districts such as Dibrugarh, Tinsukia and Sivasagar.

“Whenever the Army neutralised ULFA members or sympathisers, lakhs of people came out on the streets in protest. There were days when fifty thousand people gathered in Tinsukia, ten thousand in Dibrugarh and twenty thousand in Sivasagar,” he recalled.

Sarma said political leaders often had to personally engage with angry crowds to control the situation.

“There were occasions between 2001 and 2010 when we personally went among the people on the streets. Sometimes people even humiliated us, yet we stayed among them and controlled the situation,” he said.

According to the Chief Minister, the 2006–2011 period brought a different kind of challenge, marked by financial constraints, unemployment-related unrest and escalating violence in tribal regions, particularly Bodoland.

“When you are in government but do not have enough money, you cannot provide jobs or fulfil aspirations. Almost every student organisation carried out agitations every day. At the same time, violence in Bodoland escalated sharply. Sometimes fifty or sixty people were killed in a single day,” he said.

Sarma also recalled protests in Guwahati over land pattas and incidents of self-immolation during that period.

Reflecting on the 2011–2016 phase, Sarma admitted that internal political instability within the Congress government created difficulties, eventually leading to major political realignments and defections to the BJP.

After the BJP came to power in Assam in 2016, Sarma said the government had to confront unprecedented crises such as the anti-CAA movement and the COVID-19 pandemic.

“These were entirely different challenges,” he said.

Speaking about his most recent tenure between 2021 and 2026, Sarma said the government functioned smoothly overall but had to deal with another “emotional situation” following the death of Assamese music icon Zubeen Garg.

The Chief Minister said every political phase in Assam had its own character and no challenge weakened the government.

“We have faced everything — from ULFA uprisings to tribal insurgency, from mainstream Assamese agitations against CAA to COVID and the emotional atmosphere after Zubeen’s death,” Sarma said.

“In these twenty-five years, there have been hundreds of challenges. But after every challenge, we emerged stronger,” he added.

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