AGP sets up panel to unite splinter groups

Party executive president Phani Bhushan Choudhury, who has been appointed convenor of the 11-member committee, said it was only through unification of all regional parties or bringing them under one umbrella that could help dislodge the Congress from power in the state.

“The only way to remove the Congress and save the state from its misrule is to prevent split of the regional votes. The people of Assam are fed up with the rampant corruption that the Congress has promoted in the past six or seven years,” Choudhury said.

The regional party had made its first successful move last month when it also roped in Mahanta to extend support to Birendra Prasad Baishya, its Rajya Sabha candidate, sending signals that the AGP was no longer averse to the return of the former chief minister to the party he had founded in 1985.

The former chief minister was also seen as a liability by the AGP following the allegation that he had masterminded “secret killings” — a series of incidents in which close relations of several top ULFA leaders were killed by unidentified assailants during 1999-2001 when the regional party was at the fag end of its second stint in power. An inquiry commission headed by a former Supreme Court judge did name Mahanta as the man behind the killings, but the report failed to create any major impact on the political front.

The regional party is also looking at bringing back to its fold two other splinter groups, the Trinamul Gana Parishad (TGP) and Purbanchaliya Loka Parishad (PLP), while party executive president Choudhury also hinted at the necessity of opening doors for the return of two senior leaders Biraj Kumar Sharma and Rekharani Das Boro, both former ministers who had left the party after they were denied tickets in the 2006 Assembly elections.