Guwahati, July 7: Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi, PCC president Anjan Dutta and former cabinet minister Himanta Biswa Sarma left for Delhi today to participate in a first-of-its-kind face-to-face meeting convened by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to cap the infighting within the state unit before the 2016 Assembly election.
Gogoi left in the afternoon after attending a news conference where he described the ensuing meeting as a routine one. Dutta and Sarma left in this evening by the same flight, which was delayed by over an hour.
AICC general secretary in-charge of Assam C.P. Joshi will also attend the meeting to be held tomorrow morning.
Party insiders said the meeting would strive for a rapprochement between the warring Gogoi and Sarma camps. The high command had earlier thrown its weight behind Gogoi.
Reports that the ruling Congress might not fare well in next year's polls because of the rise of the BJP and the AIUDF and the infighting within the Congress Legislature Party prompted the AICC to convene the meeting, sources said.
An MLA close to Sarma told The Telegraph from the airport that their group had nothing but the "2016 polls on mind" and that there would be "no demand for posts".
"It is the first time all leaders will be sitting together to find some kind of a solution. While Sarma and company want to regain the political space they have lost because of the infighting, Gogoi and Dutta will want to ensure that the Sarma group does not work at cross purposes. It's a fight for space... don't expect fireworks," a senior member of the party said.
The developments come within days of five state leaders close to Sarma criticising Dutta, who had showcaused them. Two of them have since quit and are looking for a political future beyond the Congress.
It is an unenviable situation for both Sarma and Gogoi, more so for the former after he publicly declared his loss of faith in Gogoi. The chief minister has also not acquitted himself well in the dissident crisis which flared in 2012, a year after the Congress returned to power for the third straight time under Gogoi.
"Since then the party has been going downhill because of the infighting," the source said.
