Guwahati: Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi has said that he would take legal action over “malicious and baseless” allegations by the BJP, including Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, against him and his wife Elizabeth Colebourn.
A section of BJP workers and leaders, led by Sarma, had raised questions over Elizabeth’s foreign citizenship and accused her of having ties with the ISI.
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They also questioned a meeting Gogoi had led with the then Pakistani High Commissioner to India in 2015.
“The BJP has gone to extreme steps to defame me and my family. Their allegations are malicious and baseless. I will be taking the appropriate legal action,” Gogoi wrote on X on Friday.
In a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), Sarma accused Gogoi of meeting the then Pakistani High Commissioner in 2015, despite India’s objections at the time. Additionally, Sarma alleged that Gogoi’s wife, Elizabeth Colburn, worked for an organization linked to ISI, with her tenure at the Climate Development and Knowledge Network (CDKN) between 2011 and 2015 being scrutinized.
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Sarma further claimed that Colburn worked under Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, a former adviser to the Planning Commission of Pakistan, and questioned why she had not opted for Indian citizenship even after 12 years of marriage.
“Serious questions need to be answered regarding allegations of ISI links, leading young individuals to the Pakistan embassy for brainwashing and radicalization, and the refusal to take Indian citizenship for the past 12 years,” Sarma tweeted.
The Assam Chief Minister also highlighted the existing rules for Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officers, stating that they are allowed to marry foreign nationals only on the condition that the spouse acquires Indian citizenship within six months. He questioned why the same standards should not apply to lawmakers, emphasizing that “loyalty to the nation must always take precedence over all considerations.”
Gaurav Gogoi, the Congress’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, has dismissed allegations linking his wife to the ISI as “laughable,” calling them a “smear campaign” against him ahead of the 2026 Assam election.
However, taking the attack a step further, Sarma linked Colburn’s former employer, CDKN, to funding from the Open Society Foundation, an initiative by American billionaire George Soros. The BJP has repeatedly accused Congress of having ties with Soros, claiming his involvement in efforts to destabilize the Indian government.
“Additionally, participation in a conversion cartel and receiving funds from external sources, including George Soros, to destabilize national security are grave concerns that cannot be ignored,” Sarma alleged.