Assam Assembly Election 2021, Ajanta Neog profile: Upper Assam leader looks poised to deliver for BJP

Ajanta Neog, a powerful leader in Upper Assam, has held the Golaghat seat since 2001. The 46-year-old was a senior minister in all the governments of late chief minister Tarun Gogoi. It was perhaps because of that, her joining the BJP in December after meeting Union Home Minister Amit Shah caused quite a flutter in state politics. Political career To be fair, the move didn’t come out of the blue for the 46-year-old politician. Neog, a long-time Congress MLA, had just a few days earlier, been removed from the post of District Congress Committee president of Golaghat on after meeting Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) convenor Himanta Biswa Sarma. “There is a huge gap in Congress between the party leadership and grassroot workers and that is the main reason we left. There is an isolation of the grassroot workers. Their national leadership doesn’t care about what grassroots workers think,” Neog had said. She was soon expelled from the Congress for ‘anti-party’ activities. Personal history Neog was born to Sasadhar and Rebati Das in Guwahati in 1975.  She has an MA, LLB and LLM from Guwahati University. Her late husband, Nagen Neog, was gunned down in 1996 by an United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) militant. She has two sons. With inputs from PTI