In 2021, Himanta Biswa Sarma, by then Chief Minister of Assam, described the meeting with Rahul Gandhi that led him to leave the Congress. He had come to raise Assam’s problems before the state election. Gandhi was playing with his dog, and the dog took a biscuit from the plate. “I waited with my cup thinking that Rahul will push the calling bell,” Sarma said, according to The Sentinel.
The account is Sarma’s. Sources differ on whether the meeting took place in 2015 or 2016.