AGP sets up panel to unite splinter groups

The opposition Asom Gana Parishad has set up a committee to start the process of unification of all regional splinter groups of the state...

The opposition Asom Gana Parishad AGP has set up a committee to start the process of unification of all regional splinter groups of the state and to examine the possibility of paving the way for return of former chief minister and founder president Prafulla Kumar Mahanta to its fold.

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.

8220;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,8221; 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.

Mahanta, who was removed from the party8217;s top post amid a controversial but unsubstantiated allegation of bigamy after the AGP suffered defeat in the 2001 Assembly elections, had subsequently quit the party to float the AGPP. The breakaway group currently has only one member in the Assembly 8212; Mahanta himself 8212; while the AGP has 24.

The former chief minister was also seen as a liability by the AGP following the allegation that he had masterminded 8220;secret killings8221; 8212; 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.