Gaurav Gogoi threatens to sue Himanta, says CM is ‘trapped’

Assam Congress president and Jorhat MP Gaurav Gogoi on Monday (February 9, 2029) threatened to sue Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for circulating private information about his minor children.

Mr. Gogoi said Mr. Sarma could not provide any evidence of his alleged links with Pakistan and dared the Chief Minister to make the findings of Assam police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) public. The Congress leader asked why Mr. Sarma sat on the probe report for six months even after receiving it on September 10, 2025.

On Sunday (February 8, 2026), the Chief Minister had asked the Congress MP to disclose his activities during a 10-day visit to Pakistan in 2013 when he was not an MP and those of his British wife Elizabeth Colburn Gogoi, who worked for a year at LEAD Pakistan, a climate organisation in Islamabad.

Also Read | Himanta targets Gaurav Gogoi, wife on Pakistan links, says Congress leader ‘got training’

“He (Mr. Sarma) stooped so low that he shared the private information of my minor children, which we cannot make public. People know what happened or did not happen with the Chief Minister’s son and daughter. Don’t force me to speak up,” Mr. Gogoi said.

The deputy leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha said he would consult the party’s legal cell in New Delhi about invoking Section 74 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, which prohibits the disclosure of a juvenile’s identity in the media or public records.

The Chief Minister had claimed that Mr. Gogoi surrendered his nine-year-old son’s passport so that he could get British citizenship. “It was mentioned in the passport that the child (son) was a Hindu. However, the religion column was left blank when he was issued a British passport,” he said, adding that the passport of the Congress leader’s daughter mentions her religion as Christian since birth.

Mr. Gogoi said he did not approach the court against the SIT probe linked to his Pakistan visit as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party would have said he did not want it to proceed.

“We wanted the report to come out. People are saying that the report is our political success. We are happy that the Chief Minister has fallen into our trap. He took more than two hours but could not convince the media persons (with the questions and allegations he raised),” he said.

Also Read | Gaurav Gogoi’s ‘Pakistan links’ being probed for sake of national security: Himanta

‘Lack of evidence’

“The Chief Minister could not give evidence in support of his allegation that I am an agent of another country. He realised that there was no substance in the SIT report,” Mr. Gogoi said, underlining inconsistencies in the allegations.

“Earlier, the Chief Minister said I went to Pakistan for 15 days and that I, as an MP, should have obtained permission before my visit. Yesterday, he said I went there for 10 days and that I visited the country before becoming an MP,” he said.

Mr. Gogoi said Mr. Sarma had claimed the Centre had no knowledge about his Pakistan trip, although he possessed the necessary travel documents and followed legal procedures while crossing the Attari-Wagah border.

Elaborating on his trip, he said, “My wife worked under an international climate programme in Pakistan for a year, and that programme is ongoing in different countries. We were newly married then. We went to Pakistan to see where she stayed, which bazaar she went to, and where she ate.”

Mr. Gogoi said the trip was initially planned for Lahore, but he sought permission to add Islamabad, where his wife worked, to the itinerary. He said another purpose was to see Takshashila (Taxila), an archaeological wonder of the Indus Valley Civilisation.

He said the Narendra Modi government had no issues when he submitted his passport.

Parliament questions

Countering Mr. Sarma’s charges that he asked “sensitive” questions in Parliament on national security, Mr. Gogoi said an MP has the right to ask questions on any issue of national and international importance.

“The questions passed a scrutiny by the Lok Sabha Secretariat and were answered in the House. If these questions were forbidden, why didn’t the Lok Sabha Secretariat cancel them, and why did the government of India provide answers to them,” he asked.

Mr. Gogoi dismissed charges that his wife shared Intelligence Bureau reports with Pakistani national Ali Tauqeer Sheikh. “These were in the public domain, picked up from media reports. Secondly, she closed down her bank account after moving to India. She needed one in Pakistan as she had to buy essentials,” he said.

The Congress leader defended facilitating an interaction of students, including Union Public Service Commission aspirants who wanted to know about foreign policies, at the Pakistani embassy in New Delhi through an institution. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the swearing-in ceremony of Nawaz Sharif and went to a wedding (in Pakistan). I followed him when I visited the Pakistani embassy,” he said.

The Congress MP criticised the Chief Minister for sitting on the SIT report and blaming the delay on music icon Zubeen Garg’s death September 19, 2025. “He had stated that the report would be made public on September 10, but he did not deem it important at that time to send it to the Centre for investigation. He knew there was nothing conclusive in the SIT report to prove his wild, bogus, baseless, and ridiculous allegations,” he said.

“The SIT, too, did not come to interrogate me after realising that it would lead to an anti-climax,” he added.

‘Inciting genocide’

Mr. Gogoi accused the Chief Minister of “inciting genocide” against Muslims through his videos and urged police to take suo motu cognisance. He alluded to a now-deleted video captioned “point-blank shot”, shared by the State BJP on social media platforms, which showed Mr. Sarma purportedly firing from a rifle at two people, one wearing a white skullcap and the other sporting a beard.

“The police must take suo motu cognisance of the Chief Minister targeting a particular community, and sharing vicious social media videos,” Mr Gogoi said.

Published – February 09, 2026 09:39 pm IST