The Congress leadership Wednesday ramped up its offensive against Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in a visit to the state to lay the ground for next year’s Assembly election, with both Rahul Gandhi and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge warning that Sarma would be “sent to jail” if the party comes to power.
The two leaders were on a day-long visit to the state with the stated aim of meeting party functionaries to prepare a roadmap for the elections, likely to take place around March 2026. After a round of meetings in Guwahati earlier in the day, the leaders addressed a mass workers’ meeting in Chhaygaon, around 40 km from the city.
Amid a spate of evictions to reclaim government and forest land in the state, the Congress leaders accused the state government of “giving away” land to corporations.
“Your Chief Minister does not consider himself a Chief Minister, he thinks he is the king of Assam. And Assam’s king is busy 24 hours giving away your wealth, your land, sometimes to Adani, sometimes to Ambani. But if you listen to his voice carefully, you will find out that there is fear behind his voice. He speaks big things, shouts, but if you go to the television and observe his face, and listen to his voice, you will hear that there is fear in the depth of his heart. Because he knows that one day or the other, the babbar sher of the Congress party will catch him and put him in jail. He knows that, someday or the other, he will have to account for the corruption he and his family have done to the people of Assam,” said Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha.
Take it in writing, Himanta Biswa Sarma will definitely be sent to jail’ — these were the exact words spoken by the Leader of the Opposition, Shri Rahul Gandhi, during his closed-door meeting with the Congress Political Affairs Committee in Assam. He came all the way to Assam… https://t.co/4I3YpqccCs
— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) July 16, 2025
Ahead of the event at Chaygaon, Sarma said in an X post that Gandhi had made the same assertion in a closed-door party meeting earlier in the day in Guwahati and expressed “best wishes” for the Congress leader.
Most recently, a massive eviction drive in Dhubri, in which over 1400 families were evicted to clear land for a proposed thermal power project which the government has been in discussion with the Adani group, drew sharp political reactions from the Opposition.
“Neither Modi or Amit Shah will be able to save him from this. You watch, you will see him inside jail. This work will not be done inside the Congress party, this work will be done by the youth, farmers, workers, people from every community of Assam. Because they know that this person is a corrupt person, 24 hours he is snatching Assam’s land, sometimes using the excuse of solar power, sometimes for resort, he is stealing from Assam round the clock,” said Gandhi.
The same refrain was repeated by Kharge, who declared that the Congress would “build” the homes of people who have been evicted under the BJP government. Sarma said Tuesday that in the past four years of his government, a total of around 50,000 people were evicted from around 160 sq km of government, forest, grazing and land belonging to religious institutions.
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“The people whose houses they have broken, we will build them and we will help them. And the ones who do wrong things? We will send them to jail. He should improve the jails, because he has to go stay in them,” he said.
Speaking to Congress workers during the meeting, Gandhi reiterated his accusation of attempts to rig voter lists through the revision exercise in Bihar, and said that they need to be “vigilant” against a similar exercise in Assam.
“BJP and EC had stolen the Maharashtra election. They are trying to do the same thing in Bihar. You know that they have started creating a new voter list in Bihar and they are removing lakhs and crores of poor people, workers, farmers, Congress and RJD workers. We are doing demonstrations there. But they will try to do the same thing here. It is all our responsibility to not let them do this here. We have to be vigilant because BJP and the EC are working together. The EC is not fulfilling its duties. It is listening completely to the BJP and its leaders,” he said.
The Congress has revamped its organizsation in Assam after appointing MP Gaurav Gogoi as president of the Assam Congress in May. Earlier this month, it announced a new political affairs committee and new district presidents.
