Tarun Gogoi is a Congress politician and was the Chief Minister of Assam for three terms on the trot from 2001 to 2016. He was the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Food between 1991 and 1993. From 1993 to 1995, he served as the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Food Processing Industry.
He first came into the limelight in politics when he was elected as Joint Secretary of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in 1976. In 1986, he became President of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC). In 1997, he was elected to the Assam Legislative Assembly from Margherita Assembly Constituency. In 1998 and 1999, Gogoi was elected to the 12th and 13th Lok Sabha respectively. He contested the 2001 Assam Legislative Assembly elections from Titabar assembly and won the election.
Gogoi suffered a setback when Congress won only three out of 14 Lok Sabha seats from Assam, whereas BJP got seven seats -- the highest number of seats won by the saffron party in any Lok Sabha election in Assam. The octogenarian offered his resignation from the post of Assam CM in the aftermath of the drubbing. which was rejected by the then Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
Tarun Gogoi's son Gaurav Gogoi will contest the Kaliabor Lok Sabha constituency in the upcoming elections. The former CM has been quite active in the lead up to the polls and has consistently criticised Narendra Modi and Himanta Biswa Sarma. Himanta had crossed over to the BJP in 2016, saying that Gogoi just wanted to secure his son's future and was not working to revive the Congress party. He has dispelled rumours that Congress will team up with All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) to help his son win the election.