Guwahati: Former Union Minister and four-time BJP MP from Assam’s Nagaon constituency, Rajen Gohain, has resigned from the party along with 17 other members, officials said.
The 74-year-old veteran, a prominent face of the BJP in Assam and a long-time associate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), submitted his resignation on Thursday.
In a letter addressed to state BJP president Dilip Saikia, Gohain announced his resignation from the party’s primary membership and relinquished all organisational responsibilities with immediate effect.
Besides, seventeen other BJP members, mostly from Upper and Central Assam, also submitted their resignations to Saikia.
Gohain said he resigned as the party had “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 slammed the BJP government over its handling of illegal immigration, once a cornerstone of the party’s political campaign in Assam.
“The government that promised that after May 16, 2014, there would not be a single Bangladeshi in Assam is now bringing them in through new tactics,” he alleged.
He also criticised the prolonged delay in granting Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to six indigenous communities, calling it another unfulfilled promise.
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He had represented Nagaon parliamentary constituency for four terms from 1999 to 2019 and had served as the Union minister of state for railways from 2016 to 2019.
