Dip Gogol

Kaliabor, April 25: For somebody who is eyeing a hattrick of electoral victories, Dip Gogoi appears to be exceedingly calm and distanced from the cut-and-thrust of politics.

He assures you this is not a façade. Over the next hour, the 53-year-old younger sibling of Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi shows he is more at home discussing Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde and Navakanta Baruah than his political fate.

There is also his impending marriage to think of, and Dip is anything but coy about it. “Yes, I am finally getting married to a young girl from Elengmora. I have been feeling the need for a companion to tide over the bouts of loneliness that visit me, and rather frequently at that, nowadays,” he says. The comment gives an insight into the mental make-up of the man who is perceived both within and outside the Congress as a beneficiary of dynastic politics.

The soft-spoken Dip attributes his entry into politics to fate, but is anything but apologetic about it. He also admits that having a chief minister and five-time MP for a brother is a blessing. But make no mistake. Dip is his own man.

“I have been closely associated with the party since 1971. I was appointed president of the Jorhat Youth Congress by the late Rajiv Gandhi in 1984 in very trying times, at a time when being identified with the Congress was viewed as being socially and politically incorrect,” he recalls.

Quoting from Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray, he says, “No life is spoiled except whose growth is arrested.” Going by his career graph, Gogoi junior is growing rapidly.

Congress legislator Gautam Bora, from Dhing, is sure Dip will retain the Kaliabor Lok Sabha seat, which was vacated by his brother in 2002. Before contesting Kaliabor, he had won the Titabor Assembly seat, which he vacated for his MP brother after the Congress returned to power in 2001.

Dip says politics is a “nasha (addiction) rather than a pesha (profession)” for him. His real vocation is tending to a hatchery and fishery farm on the outskirts of Jorhat — and to which he intends to return full-time after finishing with politics.

During an interaction with voters, Dip admits to having done little for them. “I got very little time, most of which was spent adjusting to my new role. I am aware of the problems (flood, border and unemployment) in my constituency. Parliament proceedings will show whether I open my mouth or not. I had asked Ajit Singh, the then agriculture minister, why we are lagging behind China in foodgrain production though we have more cultivable land. His answer was not convincing.”

His priorities are to ensure that the ambitious east-west corridor extends to Arunachal Pradesh through his constituency, reopening the Stillwell Road and “doing something” for his constituency.