Former Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi passed away on Monday, 23 November at the Gauhati Medical College and Hospital, after suffering from post-COVID-19 complications.
Prime Minister Modi took to Twitter to condole his death and said that Gogoi was a popular leader with years of political experience in Assam as well as the Centre.
“Shri Tarun Gogoi Ji was a popular leader and a veteran administrator, who had years of political experience in Assam as well as the Centre. Anguished by his passing away. My thoughts are with his family and supporters in this hour of sadness. Om Shanti.,” he tweeted.
Gogoi’s Deteriorating Health
The veteran Congress leader had been admitted to the hospital on 2 November, and had been put on ‘non-invasive ventilation’, but his condition had deteriorated severely over the last 24 hours, with multiple-organ failure.
“Last evening former Assam CM Tarun Gogoi's health deteriorated, so we intubated him, he was critical yesterday. His AGB (arterial blood gas) test and parameters are slightly better today,” GMCH superintended Abhijeet Sharma had told news agency ANI.
News of Gogoi’s worsening condition was first broken by his son, Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi, on Twitter on Saturday, 21 November.
Despite the best efforts of the GMCH doctors, who, according to Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sharma, were in contact with experts at All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi, Gogoi breathed his last on Monday.
Gogoi had tested positive for COVID-19 on 25 August and was admitted to the GMCH the next day, where he was administered plasma therapy. He was discharged from the hospital, after two months, on 25 October after he recovered from the COVID-19 infection and other post-recovery complications.
Born in 1936, Gogoi began his political career as a ward member of the Jorhat Municipality in 1968. He was elected as an MP from Jorhat in the 1971 Lok Sabha elections, and was an MP for six terms (later from Koliabor). In 1976, he was appointed as Joint Secretary of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), and was president of the Assam Congress for two terms.
After having been an MLA in the state four times, he led the Congress in Assam to three consecutive electoral victories in the state (2001-2016), becoming the longest-serving CM of the state in 2012.
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