- Source: Gaurishankar Bhattacharyya
Gaurishankar Bhattacharyya (10 December 1915 - 23 June 2002 - ?) was an Assamese freedom fighter, social activist, litterateur and politician, who served as the Leader of Opposition in the Assam Legislative Assembly.
Early life and education
Bhattacharya was born in Samarkuchi village of Nalbari district to Souridutta Bhattacharyya, a Sanskrit Pandit. He did his undergraduate from Cotton College, and earned a M. A. in history from Presidency College, Kolkata.
Political career
Bhattacharya was active in politics since his student days; in 1939, he was elected as the president of the All Assam Students Federation.
In 1952, Bhattacharya won election to the Assam Legislative Assembly from the Guwahati constituency for the Communist Party of India (CPI) defeating Rajabala Das of the Indian National Congress (INC). He was the only legislator from CPI in the House. In 1957, he defended the seat, defeating Lakshmidhar Borah of the INC. However, five years later in 1962, Bhattacharya suffered defeat at the hands of Debendra Nath Sharma, the INC candidate. Months afterward, during the Sino-Indian War, Bhattacharya was subject to preventive detention by the Congress government for his activism; he would leave CPI, shortly.
In the 1967 elections, Bhattacharya stood as an independent candidate from the newly delimited Borbhag constituency and eked out a comfortable win over Pabindra Nath Sarma of the INC. Two years later, Bhattacharya collaborated with Renuka Devi Barkataki, a Congress renegade, to launch the Peoples Democratic Party of Assam (PDPA); it would be the first regional party to contest the assembly elections. Five years later, Bhattacharya stood as an independent candidate from Borbhag again, and won against Sarma. Bhattacharya became the leader of the Opposition in the Assam Legislative Assembly. The Peoples democratic Party (PDPA) later merged with Janata Party in 1977.
Literature
Bhattacharya moved away from politics in his later life, devoting time to literature; in 1999, he was conferred with the national Sahitya Academy Award (Anubad Suchi Samman) by the Sahitya Akademi for translating B.R. Aggarwalla's Trials of Independence into Assamese.
Personal life
Bhattacharya married Tarulata Bhattacharya; they had three sons — Dibya Shankar Bhattacharya who is a senior Indian Army officer, Dhruba Shankar Bhattacharya (now deceased) and Siddhartha Bhattacharya —, and a daughter — Suprabha Bhattacharya. Siddhartha Bhattacharya is a legislator from the Bharatiya Janata Party; Suprabha Bhattacharya's only son is Arnab Goswami, an Indian right-wing news anchor and editor-in-Chief of Republic TV.