But the unexpected victory created a problem for Tarun Gogoi, the captain of the winning team. The new MLAs started to subject Gogoi to pulls and pressures to press their claim for a berth in the cabinet. They did not stop at Dispur but flew to Delhi and pitched their tents there to carry on intense lobbying and to reach at least within an earshot of the party president. A harassed and helpless Gogoi did the obvious thing: he left the final decision on cabinet formation to Sonia Gandhi. All these lobbyings and counter-lobbyings delayed forming of the new ministry by nine days. Gogoi was sworn in on May 18, but his eighteen-member cabinet on May 27.

Expectedly, some old faces could not make a come back. Eight new ministers were inducted, prominent among them being Nilmani Sen Deka, who defeated the AGP president Chandra Mohan Patowary. The Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the old Assembly, Tanka Bahadur Rai and Pranati Phukon, were taken in the cabinet. Ardhendu Dey, a minister in the Saikia cabinet who had been cooling his heels outside the Janata Bhavan for a long time, was ultimately taken into the Gogoi team. A prominent minister who has been dropped is Bhumidhar Barman, who was perhaps the longest serving minister. He was the acting chief minister after Hiteswar Saikia’s death.

The demand for cabinet berths came not only from individual legislators but also from the tea workers’ lobby. The Tea Cell of the Pradesh Congress demanded at least two cabinet rank ministers and two parliamentary secretaries. It pointed out that the tea labourer community had returned the highest number of 32 Congress MLAs out of the 36 constituencies in which the tea workers were the deciding factor.

But the biggest problem for Gogoi would be to manage the plains tribal community of the Bodos. In the last Assembly, the Bodo People’s Front (BPF) had eleven MLAs and three ministers. This time the BPF has won one more seat to become twelve and naturally they wanted a better representation. But the demand from the Congress legislators was so great that ultimately Gogoi could retain only one Bodo minister. Two others were dropped. Gogoi was reminded by his party colleagues that there were allegations of rampant corruption against all the three BPF ministers and that in the present circumstances, the Congress did not need the support of the BPF at all. But Gogoi, a decent and broad-minded man that he is, did not jettison his old friends who stood behind him in bad days. However, the Bodos are not happy. They are now demanding that in lieu of ministership, some of them should be made chairmen of different State-sector undertakings or other bodies.

According to political observers in Guwahati, there is now a distinct possibility of the Bodos reviving their old demand for a separate Bodoland State. They point out that in November last year, all Bodo political and militant groups held a Bodo National Convention at Kokrajhar. In all, forty-one different groups participated in it, including the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and Bodo Sahitya Sabha. The convention decided to revive the movement for a separate Bodoland.

The demand is fiercely opposed by the non-Bodos. They were opposed to the creation of the Bodo Autonomous Council (BAC) in 1993 and later to the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) with wider powers in 2003, on the ground that in the territories brought under the administrative jurisdiction of the BTC, the Bodos were a small minority except in a few isolated pockets. However, as the Bodo militants went on intensifying their struggle for an independent Bodoland outside India even after the creation of the BAC, the Union Government and the Assam Government entered into a tripartite Accord with the militant outfit Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT) to set up the BTC.

The then Union Home Minister L. K. Advani announced the decision to create the BTC at a public meeting in Kokrajhar on February 2, 2003. This reporter who was present there on that day was told by joyous Bodos returning from the meeting that they took the BTC as “one more step to a separate Bodoland State.”

The final denouement of the Darjeeling Gorkhas’ demand for a separate Gorkhaland State in West Bengal is likely to have a direct impact on the Bodoland issue. Assam has already reconciled itself to the separation of four of its old hill districts to form the States of Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram. Only Karbi Anglong and North Cachar hills districts remain with the parent State. If the movement for a Bodoland State is revived, it will be a test of Gogoi’s political and negotiating skill to keep the Bodo and other plains tribal communities satisfied within the present-day Assam. (IPA Service)