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.

The ULFA has also chosen the easiest path—striking soft targets. While it carried out a series of explosions in different towns during Durga Puja last year, this year began with an attack on Hindi-speaking people—mostly seasonal Bihari labourers—killing at least 70 of them in 15 days. The security forces have also hit back, killing at least 60 ULFA activists and arresting over 550, with the Army claiming that the backbone of the organisation has been broken.

Lt Gen RK Chhabra, GOC of the Army’s Four Corps, also operational head of the counter-insurgency operations in Assam, claimed that with the attack on Hindi-speaking people in January, the transition of the so-called “freedom fighters” into a pure terrorist organisation was complete.

Then there were serious allegations that the Congress had a nexus with the rebels. That it had some tacit understanding for the elections was exposed by the ULFA itself. The manner in which the ULFA withdrew its “ban” on the 33rd National Games in February also remained hazy with a private television news channel saying that Gogoi had “managed” the outfit. The recent round of attacks in Guwahati, especially in Fancy Bazaar-Athgaon, has reduced the Government to a mute spectator. Gogoi did not even visit the blast site or hospital last Saturday. All he said was that he was determined to fight the ULFA with an iron fist. And the common man continues to feel insecure.