HATIMURA (ASSAM) Gojen Dohotia never imagined he would be face-to-face with political heavyweights—from Assam and the country beyond—almost every day since the last week of September 2025, when a makeshift memorial for Assam’s cultural icon Zubeen Garg came up at Hatimura on National Highway 27.
About 20 km east of Guwahati, Hatimura is where the last rites of Garg were performed on September 23, 2025, four days after he died while swimming off an island in Singapore, where he was scheduled to perform at an event.
“The flow of politicians increased when the election season started more than a month ago. This is ironical because Zubeenda had often voiced his aversion to politics, headlined by his song Politics nokoriba bondu (don’t play politics, friend),” Mr. Dohotia, who sells memorabilia under a shed adjoining Zubeen Kshetra, said.
Zubeen Kshetra is the name of the cultural centre being built on a 10-bigha (3.3 acres) around the spot where Garg was cremated. The spot is an enclosed tin-roofed samadhi around which his fans, young and old, circumambulate and offer earthen lamps, flowers, and incense sticks.
Fans at Zubeen Kshetra, the memorial coming up for Zubeen Garg near Guwahati.
| Photo Credit:
Rahul Karmakar
Paying obeisance to Garg, an “immortal voter” in the Dispur Assembly constituency, has been a pre-poll ritual for many candidates across Assam’s Brahmaputra Valley. Zubeen Kshetra, adorned with posters and huge cut-outs of the iconic singer-composer, is also in the constituency.
For tens of thousands of his fans, visiting Zubeen Kshetra has developed into a habit. They pray to their icon and to a higher power they believe in for “Justice for Zubeen”.
“We can only hope. It is for the government, this one or the next, of whichever political hue, to ensure that Zubeenda and his family get justice,” Sumitra Gohain of Dibrugarh, about 430 km east of Hatimura, said. By justice, she meant punishment for all perceived by the people to have driven Garg to death, directly or indirectly.
Impact on poll outcome
Pranjal Gogoi, from a village in eastern Assam’s Jorhat district, said a Singapore court’s ruling that Garg’s death was accidental will not change the people’s minds. “He should have been left out of politics and elections, but the events around his death will impact the outcome this time, although I think he will never get justice. Pure souls do not,” he said.
Ringmoni Borah Dutta, from a village in northeastern Assam’s Dhemaji district, disagreed. “He will get justice, maybe not so fast. However, we would like to see the work on his memorial be completed faster,” she said.
Work on the centre, including the construction of the boundary wall, began around the time the election schedule was announced on March 15. The State’s Public Works Department initiated the work.
The “justice for Zubeen” issue snowballed after Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma claimed in November 2025 that Garg was murdered as part of a conspiracy. Seven people, including Garg’s manager Siddharth Sharma and Shyamkanu Mahanta, an event organiser, were arrested for involvement in his “mysterious” death.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) subsequently took out a ‘Nyay Yatra’, citing the arrests and filing of a charge sheet as the government’s commitment to ensuring justice in the case. It also asked the Congress-led Opposition not to politicise his death.
The Opposition hit back, pointing out that the Chief Minister made it a political issue by telling the people that they should not vote for the BJP if the government failed to deliver justice to Garg.
Garg, who actively took part in the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act stir in 2019, was often critical of the BJP. He also attacked the BJP-led Assam government for chopping century-old trees in Guwahati to create space for a flyover.
Some of Garg’s younger fans have not yet gotten over his death. “I may not vote because Zubeenda won’t,” Himangshu Deka from western Assam’s Nalbari said.
Garg continues to be a voter of the Dispur constituency. Electoral officials declined to remove his name from the electoral roll out of respect.
Published – March 27, 2026 04:00 am IST
