4 min readGuwahatiFeb 16, 2026 06:12 PM IST
First published on: Feb 16, 2026 at 06:09 PM IST
Dramatic scenes played out at former state Congress president Bhupen Borah’s Guwahati residence after he submitted his resignation from the party, with senior leaders from the state unit and the All India Congress Committee rushing there and meeting him for hours, after which they announced that they had not accepted his resignation. Borah told the media that he had sought “some time” to arrive at his final decision.
Borah, who was the president of the state Congress unit till Gaurav Gogoi took charge in June last year, submitted his resignation to the party’s central leadership around 8 am on Monday.
Soon afterwards, several leaders rushed to his residence, including AICC General Secretary and in charge of Assam, Jitendra Singh; Leader of the Opposition in the Assam Legislative Assembly, Debabrata Saikia; MP Pradyut Bordoloi; and AICC National Secretary and Assam co-in-charge, Manoj Chauhan. Gogoi was also among the leaders.
After several hours of meetings, during which Jitendra Singh said that Rahul Gandhi had also spoken to Borah on the phone for 15 minutes, Singh announced that the party had not accepted his resignation.
“Bhupen Borah is a very senior Congressperson. He was formerly the Pradesh committee president, is the campaign committee head, and is an integral part of the Congress family… We are a family in the Congress, and there can be differences of opinion. We sit and talk about these together and come to an agreement. The Congress and the AICC have not accepted his resignation. The leadership has spoken at length to Bhupen Borah ji,” he said.
Just days before submitting his resignation, Borah, who has a good relationship with Congress’s potential alliance partners, was tasked with playing a larger role in advancing alliance talks, with elections expected to be announced in the next few weeks. While discussing his resignation, he suggested indecisiveness in party affairs as a factor.
Not just Congress leaders, but also leaders of potential alliance parties, such as Akhil Gogoi of Raijor Dol and Manoranjan Talukdar of the CPI(M), arrived at Borah’s residence.
Sitting next to Borah after Monday’s meetings, Gogoi said that they seek forgiveness if they have “unknowingly caused hurt” to him.
Bhupen Borah has been with the Congress since 1994 and is a two-time MLA from 2006 to 2016 from the Bihpuria constituency. He was appointed the president of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee in 2021, after the party’s loss in the state election that year.
“I have been with the party for 32 years, and through the years, the people of Assam have been seeing what all I have done for the party. There are many things that I have been telling the leadership for a long time. When I saw that my words were not being given importance, I submitted my resignation letter. My central and state leadership have spoken to me, and I have a long relationship not just with work but also personally with them… I will consult my family; I have sought some time, and will convey my decision by tonight or tomorrow morning,” he said.