The Congress-led coalition Government in Assam headed by Tarun Gogoi has completed a year in office in his second term. And though the Government planned a mega celebration to the mark the occasion last Sunday, the ULFA dampened the affair, causing a huge explosion in the heart of the state capital, leaving seven dead and injuring 30 others.

For Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, his second term in office has not been smooth. The Congress party, which had won 73 seats in a House of 126 under him in 2001, could manage to retain only 53. Had it not been for the Hagrama Mohilary faction of the Bodoland Progressive People’s Front (BPPF), Gogoi would have been sitting in the Opposition benches. The emergence of the Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF)—headed by international perfume tycoon Badruddin Ajmal—which took away considerable Muslim votes, had almost unseated the Congress.

The ULFA has not been amused with the Congress, and it has its reasons. According to ULFA Chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, the Congress Government began talks with its emissaries—the People’s Consultative Group (PCG)—in October 2005, only to scrape through the 2006 Assembly elections.

“Once the election was over and the Congress came to power, it forgot about continuing the peace process,” Rajkhowa had said when the indirect peace talks with ULFA broke down last year. And the Congress neither denied nor accepted this.

There were, however, several other reasons for the breakdown of peace talks. And these include the Government version that the ULFA wants the issuance of sovereignty in the agenda and the release of its top leaders currently in jail. But whatever be the reason, Assam has been passing through a difficult phase, with the Army occasionally cracking down on the rebels, and the ULFA and the security forces continuously clashing.

... contd.