Gaurishankar Bhattacharyya

Gauri Shankar Bhattacharyya (10 December 191523 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.

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).

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 Gauri Shankar Bhattacharya married Tarulata Bhattacharya; they had three sons — Dibya Shankar Bhattacharya who was a senior Indian Army officer and presently is a well-known political analyst, commentator and social activist, Dhruba Shankar Bhattacharya (now deceased) and Siddhartha Bhattacharya, and three daughters. Siddhartha Bhattacharya is a legislator.

His eldest grandson is Arnab Goswami, an Indian news anchor and editor-in-Chief of Republic TV.