Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday stated that the foreigners or infiltration was not the only major problem faced by the state as some quarters have trying to project it though he admitted that illegal foreigners were indeed present in the state.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Tuesday expressed apprehension about Maoists' design behind the agitation launched by the landless or illegal settlers on government land under the banner of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samity, whose leader Akhil Gogoi has already been arrested and in judicial custody now.
A judicial inquiry will be held to probe the violence in lower Assam even as the Central Bureau of Investigation has taken up seven cases related to the clashes that have claimed 77 lives so far. "We have decided on a judicial inquiry. This will be done at a much larger scale and cover the entire gamut of issues, including lapses by administration and recommendations for preventing such incidents in the future," Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said.
Assam minister Dr Himanta Bishwa Sarma who on Monday quit from the Tarun Gogoi cabinet said that he had been forced to take the step after the Congress leadership had repeatedly ignored the representations made by the rebel MLAs about the 'inefficient' handling of affairs by the chief minister.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Friday made it clear that any accord between the Centre and the NSCN(IM) should not compromise the territorial integrity of his state.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday sounded happy over the way the dialogue between the Government of India and United Liberation Front of Assam has progressed.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Tuesday promised to publish a white paper by the first week of October giving details about the steps taken by the government to check the illegal migration from Bangladesh even as a fresh wave of people's agitation against the problem of illegal migrants threatening to gather momentum in the state.
Tarun Gogoi, who steered the Congress to a spectacular win in Assam, will be sworn-in as chief minister for the third consecutive term on Wednesday, Pradesh Congress Committee sources said on Monday.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Monday announced a slew of stricter laws to fight corruption and amendments in the existing Lokayukta Act. Gogoi said, "The new anti-corruption legislations and the amendments to State Lokayukta Act will be tabled in the state assembly in the next budget session." "We were committed to tackling corruption even before Anna Hazare started his campaign. With that in mind, we will make amendments in the present Lokayukta Act," he said.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Sunday dismissed the suggestion that illegal migration from Bangladesh has led to high growth of Muslim population in the state but blamed illiteracy for the high birth rate among the community.
Death of four persons in an Assam-bound special train coming from Bangalore in Jalpaiguri area of North Bengal in West Bengal has raised the alarm and Assam government has sounded the alert apprehending fresh violence once the Eid celebration is over in the state.
A high-level delegation of Union Home ministry is in Assam to prepare the ground for starting political negotiations with various militant outfits including the United Liberation Front of Asom, United People's Democratic Solidarity, Dima Halim Daoga-Jewel which have come forward for dialogue to resolve their problems.
After several days of intensive statehood agitation by various ethnic communities, the situation in Assam limped back to normalcy on Wednesday. Trains services were restored while movement of vehicles including trucks carrying essential commodities resumed on the highways connecting the Assam and the Northeast to the rest of the country.
"The basic cause behind insurgency and Maoists activities or naxalism is frustration over lack of livelihood options. So we need to create jobs or source of income for youth in backward areas to prevent them from going astray. It is not true only in case of Assam but for the whole of the country," Gogoi said.
As an undercurrent of tension continues to grip the violence-hit Assam, Chief minister Tarun Gogoi on Friday called a meeting of all the political parties in the state to work out a joint and all-participating strategy to deal with the situation effectively in the interest of restoring peace and communal harmony in the state.
The Assam government has decided to hand over all cases related to the ethnic violence -- that recently rocked Kokrajhar, Chirang and Dhubri districts of Assam -- to the Central Bureau of Investigation to nab the culprits who masterminded the violence.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Sunday said the insurgency situation in the state had assumed a new dimension with Maoists trying to strike an alliance with insurgent groups, and the involvement of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence in it.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Thursday said some divisive forces were at work against restoration of peace in the state as a result of which violent incidents continued.
Strongly backing Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi over his handling of ethnic violence in the state, senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Thursday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party accusing it of 'adding fuel to the fire'.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Sunday said he will step down as the chairman of the counter-insurgency Unified Command in order to concentrate on development activities. The chief secretary will take over the responsibility. "I want to focus more on development work as it is the development that will ultimately neutralise insurgency. Had there been no insurgency, the state could have afforded to pump more money into development and welfare schemes," he said.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Tuesday announced a Rs 100 crore grant for development of the flood-ravaged Dhemaji district in the state.
The senior Congress leader opined that the situation in Assam can now be divided into two phases -- pre-CAA and post-CAA, and it was necessary to unite all anti-CAA forces in order to protect the ethos of the Assam Accord.
The banned ULFA, which had called for a general strike on Independence Day, triggered four explosions in Dhubri and Bongaigaon districts of Assam on Wednesday.
Even as the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government is at loggerhead with yoga guru Baba Ramdev over the latter's tirade against corruption and black money in foreign banks, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has remembered that he had once ordered allotment of a plot of land to the yoga guru for his institution in Guwahati.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday asked for a probe by the National Investigation Agency into the violence by Bodo militant group NDFB(S) in the state and vowed to apprehend those responsible for the killings.
The anti-talks faction of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam on Monday flayed Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi for expressing its inability to bring 'culprits' behind the infamous 'secret killings' in Assam during the last AGP regime (1996-2001) to book for 'lack of evidence'.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has constituted a Group of Ministers to monitor the operations to provide relief and rehabilitate the violence-displaced persons in Assam in the wake of the government asking the violence-hit to return to their villages from relief camps by August 15 in view of 'improvement in security scenario'.
With the situation improving in violence-hit districts of Assam, refugees have started returning home with the state government setting an August 15 deadline for all displaced persons to return.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, Speaker Tanka Bahadur Rai, Deputy Speaker Pranati Phukon and a host of Cabinet ministers and Congress veterans are among the total 485 candidates whose fate will be decided on Monday in the first phase of the Assembly elections in Assam to be held in 62 Local Authorities Constituencies spread over 13 districts.
The Congress stormed back to power in Assam for the third consecutive time on Friday, securing an absolute majority, bagging 69 seats in the 126-member assembly.
Right To Information activist and President of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti Akhil Gogoi was arrested on Sunday in connection with the self-immolation of an activist last week, triggering widespread protest in Assam.
Days after Al Qaeda issued a video threatening to carry out its campaign in India, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday said the terror group is trying to set up base in the state and had "tacit understanding" with United Liberation Front of Asom.
The All Assam Students' Union took out a torchlight procession in Guwahati city on Friday evening to protest Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi's advocacy for sparing migrants who crossed the border to escape persecution in their country.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Thursday asked Chief Secretary N K Das to institute a probe into Wednesday's incident of protests by Guwahati-based journalists that occurred outside the main entrance to the Assam assembly complex regarding the entry of mediapersons at the time of filing of nomination papers by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh for the May 30 Rajya Sabha elections, according to an official communique.
The Congress' decision to nominate Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi's son Gaurav to contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls has been questioned by former President late Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed's son Dr Parvez Ahmed.
Fresh incidents of violence in Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council areas in Assam, the Opposition Asom Gana Parishad on Friday burnt effigies of Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi in different parts of the state condemning his government's failure to maintain peace and tranquility.
United Liberation Front of Asom anti-talk faction on Monday accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi of secretly giving away Assam's land to Bangladesh in the recent land swap agreement.
Gogoi says BJP will suffer the same fate as Bihar in Assam if secular forces unite.