Senior BJP leader Rajen Gohain, 17 others quit party

Former Union minister and four-time BJP MP Rajen Gohain resigned from the party along with 17 others on Thursday.

In a letter addressed to state BJP president Dilip Saikia, Gohain said he was resigning from the primary membership of the party and stepping down from all party responsibilities with immediate effect.

In his resignation letter, Gohain said the party failed "to fulfil the promises made to the people of Assam and betrayed the indigenous communities by allowing outsiders to settle in the state".


Gohain, who belongs to the Ahom community, had represented Nagaon in the Lok Sabha from 1999 to 2019.

In 2023, he resigned from the chairmanship of Assam Food and Civil Supplies Corporation, alleging that the delimitation exercise of assemblies and parliamentary constituencies had rendered Nagaon seat unwinnable for BJP and put the people of Nagaon under threat because of the demography change.

During the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, he reopened the old and newcomer debate in the BJP and said the party would suffer across the country because of the apathy meted out to its workers. "No one becomes leader sans party worker and workers should not be ignored. It is the workers who get us introduced to the people. Old party workers if ignored have its consequences," he had said at the time.