I am not BJP’s Assam CM candidate: Ranjan Gogoi

Dispur, Aug 23: Former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi has rubbished the speculation that he would be Bharatiya Janata Party's chief ministerial candidate in Assam for next year's assembly election.

"I am not a politician and have no such ambition or intent. Nobody has mentioned any such possibility to me," Gogoi in In an exclusive interaction with India Today.

Former Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi had earlier claimed that Ranjan Gogoi might well be the chief ministerial candidate for the BJP in Assam in next year's assembly polls.

"I have heard from several sources that Ranjan Gogoi's name is there in the list of BJP candidates for the chief minister's post. I suspect that he might be projected as the next possible chief ministerial candidate," he said.

Ranjan Gogoi, who is the son of former Assam CM Kesab Chandra Gogoi, could have easily become the chairman of the Human Rights Commission or other rights bodies, but he accepted the Rajya Sabha membership as "he has political ambition", the Congress leader claimed.

"The BJP was happy with Ranjan Gogoi for the Ayodhya land dispute case judgment. It won't be surprising if he agrees to be the next CM candidate for the BJP, Tarun Gogoi said on Saturday.

The BJP, however, denied the former three-time state chief minister's assertion on Ranjan Gogoi who was nominated as a Rajya Sabha member by the government in March.

"People say many meaningless things when they become very old. There is no truth in what Tarun Gogoi said about the former CJI becoming the BJPs chief ministerial candidate," the saffron partys state unit president Ranjeet Kumar Dass said.

Gogoi headed a five-judge bench that gave the verdict on the sensitive Ayodhya land dispute on November 9 last year.

He also headed the benches that ruled on matters like entry of women in Sabarimala temple and Rafale fighter jet deal.

The election to the 126-member Assam Assembly in 2016 had given a fractured mandate and no party got the absolute majority in the current House. The ruling BJP is in the government with support from the AGP and BPF along with one Independent MLA.