More trouble brewing for Mahanta

One day later, it was the turn of senior ministers including Digen Bora, Minister for Civil Supplies, to revolt, on the issue of meddling by a senior bureaucrat.

And, hardly could Mahanta, also the AGP president, tide over this crisis, it is the turn of PWD Minister and party general secretary Atul Bora to question the style of functioning of the Chief Minister.

Bora, who has beenrepresenting the prestigious Dispur Assembly constituency for three successive terms since 1985, has called Mahanta a weak leader, and sent signals that he would line up about 30 MLAs behind him and put up claims to be an alternative to Mahanta. Minister Rouf has been the first to declare that he was behind Bora, while the latter claimed that he had the backing of several senior cabinet ministers too.

Bora’s revolt was stoked further Phukan, who he declared that he would not mind accepting Bora as his leader. The dissatisfaction of Bora has been traced back to the nomination of Jayashree Goswami Mahanta, wife of the chief minister for the prestigious Nagaon Lok Sabha seat. And he has even given interviews to a couple of local dailies airing his views against her candidature.

Bora was already gone on record that he was willing to take up the leadership of the party and the government provided majority of the MLAs wanted it. But he categorically stated that he was not in favour of splitting the party asthreatened by Phukan.

Phukan on his part, however, has said that he would return to the party fold if Bora was made the leader, thus indicating trouble for Mahanta. Both Phukan and Bora are stated to have already met a couple of times during the past few days. Mahanta however has refused to call the developments as a crisis and simply said “the AGP is a democratic party and the leadership is open for criticism. But complaints should be routed through the proper forum.”