@GauravGogoiAsm does not live politics around the clock. He has compartments in his life. He needs time to switch off, to read, to savour a meal—I can personally attest that Gogoi is a committed foodie—to simply be elsewhere. There is nothing wrong with this. It may even be the healthiest way to live. But it is not electorally optimal, particularly when the opponent is an electoral machine who breathes politics every waking hour. The very qualities that had endeared him to people—composure, decency, a refusal to treat politics as warfare—became, in the crucible of an election, liabilities. He was ready to make amends on the counsel of trusted advisers, but he did not display desperation, because desperation is not in his nature. Someone once told me that on the day he was announced as the Congress candidate from Jorhat, he was found in a café, reading a book over coffee, with what can only be described as Zen-like calm. There is nothing right or wrong in this. It is simply who he is.
indiatodayne.in/opinion/story/…
English
