Two state guest houses are currently being occupied respectively by the incumbent Chief Minister, Sarbananda Sonowal and former Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi. Meanwhile, the Government of Assam has recently declared conversion of the Brahmaputra Ashok Hotel into a state guest house and convention centre. According to a notice issued by the Assam Tourism Development Corporation (ATDC), the hotel, situated on the bank of Brahmaputra River, is closing operations permanently from 1st September this year. ATDC sources said that all pre-closure operations of the hotel are being handled by the ATDC which had taken over the hotel from 1st July this year. The state guest house atop the Koinadhora Hill, which was used as the official residence of Tarun Gogoi during his regime, is yet to be vacated by him. After coming to power, present Chief Minister, Sonowal, started residing in the other state guest house known as Brahmaputra Guest House at the Satpukhuri area. So is it because the two state guest houses are occupied by the former and the present chief ministers that the government is converting the hotel into a guest house? What about the future of the hotel’s contractual employees who were recently seen agitating against the move? Why are the chief ministers occupying the state guest houses? G Plus explores the situation and tries to find out the reasons.
Why is Tarun Gogoi not vacating the Koinadhora residence?
Since taking oath for the first time in 2001, former Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has been residing in the guest house at Koinadhora which was constructed in the 1970s. Soon after the decision of the present state government was announced that the Brahmaputra Ashok Hotel will be converted into a state guest house, Gogoi in a press conference, opposed the decision and said that the present government is taking the decision because Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has “captured” the state Brahmaputra Guest House and has converted it into the chief minister’s residence. On being asked why he himself had not vacated the Koinadhora premises, Gogoi said that since the last one and a half years he has been trying to get a new quarter. He has even sent many applications but the quarter which is being allotted to him is not fully constructed and it does not even have rooms for his security personnel. He said that he started living at Koinadhora because Prafulla Mahanta, the chief minister before him, had combined 4-5 quarters in the MLA Hostel and had customized it to suit his requirements. It seems after Gogoi came to power, Mahanta requested that he be allowed to continue living in this customized residence as he had security personnel who also needed to stay in the quarters. Gogoi then got the Koinadhora property repaired and started living there. Gogoi also said that Sonowal can live in the Koinadhora guest house and Gogoi would vacate the residence whenever required. If that is the case why is the present government converting the Brahmaputra Ashok Hotel into a guest house?
The conversion
ATDC chairman Jayanta Malla Baruah, talking to G Plus, said that 30 years ago, India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) and the Assam state government had jointly decided to start Hotel Brahmaputra Ashok with ITDC taking 51% share and state government owning 49% share. According to him, all these days the company which was formed between the two (Assam Ashok Hotel Corporation Ltd) was running the hotel and since a few months now it was running up losses. According to him, during Namami Brahmaputra, ITDC asked that the hotel be entirely given to them and the state government had also made a similar request. Baruah said that after repeated requests made by the state government the Centre decided to completely hand over the hotel to the state government and on 27th April, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between ITDC and the state government. It was decided that the state government will take over the hotel from July 1. Baruah said, “ATDC controlled the hotel for two months and there was a monthly profit of around Rs 12 lakhs to Rs 13 lakhs.” He further said that according to the memorandum, the state government can take over the hotel if it is converted to a guest house and a state convention centre. Therefore, it was decided that both the adjacent Circuit House and the hotel be combined and converted to a world class state guest house and a convention centre. Baruah said that things are in the planning stage and the guest house will be planned on the lines of India Habitat Centre. On being asked whether it was because the present chief minister is staying in the Brahmaputra Guest House that the decision was taken, Baruah said that in the entire state there is no official residence for the chief minister as such. He also said that the Koinadhora property is also a guest house and not a CM residence and the CM, after all, also has to live somewhere. He said that Brahmaputra Guest House now has all the infrastructure of providing security to the chief minister and there are rooms in which various important meetings are conducted. Baruah said that this was not the reason why the hotel is being converted to a guest house but the move is as per the memorandum which has been signed with the ITDC. Baruah also said that all the permanent employees of the erstwhile hotel will get decent remunerations and the contractual employees might get placed by the Assam Hotel Association as the government already has had a meeting with them.
Reacting to Gogoi’s charges, BJP chief spokesperson Bijan Mahajan said, “The Congress party has no leader having mass appeal like the honourable Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal. He has mass appeal and good connect with the people of Assam. He resides in the centre of the city of Guwahati so that people from far flung areas can easily contact him.” Another source in the BJP said that the present chief minister prefers to live there because he can easily connect with the people and not live royally like Tarun Gogoi on a hill top.
The Congress might blame the BJP and the BJP might counter the Congress but the fact remains that the guest houses made for the state’s guests with public money are being occupied by chief ministers and it is somewhat amusing that a state like Assam does not yet have a permanent residence for its Chief Minister.
