Leading the charge of the Right brigade...in Assam

The name of Sarbananda Sonowal, BJP's CM candidate for the Assam assembly election, lends itself well to catchy slogans. Thus it was that the 'Achhe Din' of the 2014 Lok Sabha election gave way to 'Sabka Anand...Sarbanand' as BJP led a highly charged campaign in the northeastern state.
Backing the 53-year-old tribal CM candidate is PM Narendra Modi who called him the 'heera' (diamond) of the Union ministry and the biggest challenger to octogenarian Tarun Gogoi.In BJP's strategy of pitting 'tarun' (youth) against Tarun, Sonowal was tasked with leading the charge of the Right brigade.
The youngest of four brothers, Sonowal is known to be a loner. He does not have too many friends and is a bachelor. Many complain that he dumps his friends the moment they disagree with him; others say this stems from his hatred of controversies.
Currently minister of state for sports and youth welfare, Sonowal has been a keen cricketer and footballer since his school days in Dibrugarh. He was the gymnasium secretary at his college, Kanhoi College in Dibrugarh. He holds a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Dibrugarh University and a degree in law from Gauhati University.
No stranger to adulation, Sonowal was thrust into limelight in 2005, when he won a long legal battle in the Supreme Court. He was instrumental in the scrapping of the controversial Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, 1983, after it was proved that the legislature was protecting illegal migrants from Bangladesh. Sonowal returned to a hero's welcome in Guwahati as people lined up along the road from the airport to the city to shower him with flower petals. In a spontaneous show of emotion, Sonowal was given the title of jatiya nayak (national hero). Since then, there has been no looking back for him.
Fifteen years after that historic day, Sonowal finds himself at the threshold of creating history again as he leads BJP in what may turn out to be the first saffron government in Assam. Not just BJP, Sonowal also has the difficult task of leading allies who are powerful in their own right. It is a measure of his quick journey from regionalism to nationalism that he led his former mentor in All Assam Students' Union (Aasu), Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, in an electoral alliance in the state.
A former Aasu president, Sonowal is only the second student leader-turned-politician to take a shot at winning the highest elected post in Assam after Mahanta himself. In 1985, Mahanta and his Aasu colleagues caught the world's attention by walking straight from varsity campuses to the corridors of power in Dispur.
Since his Aasu days, Sonowal has tasted power both as an MLA and an MP. Known to be a devout man, godmen and superstitious beliefs occupy pride of place in Sonowal's home and career. His houses in Dibrugarh and New Delhi are filled with feng-shui objects and he wears a gemstone on every finger of his hands. His colleagues say Sonowal never misses a chance to visit a temple. His religiosity was evident after the assembly polls, too. While other political leaders went on vacations, Sonowal went temple hopping.
A sharp dresser, the BJP leader even allows the stars to dictate his sartorial choices. Guided by the planets, he wears different coloured shirts on different days but sticks to black trousers and well-polished black shoes; this perhaps in tribute to a style introduced by him and Aasu general secretary Samujjal Bhattacharya during their student union days from 1992 to 1999.
Not just shirts, critics accuse Sonowal of changing parties and constituencies just as often. He made his political debut in 2001 when he joined AGP and went on to become an MLA from Moran constituency in Dibrugarh district. Three years later, he shifted to the Dibrugarh Lok Sabha constituency and became an MP by defeating Congress stalwart Paban Sing Ghatowar. He then walked out of AGP in 2011 to join BJP. In the 2014 LS polls, Sonowal chose to contest from Lakhimpur, which he won by defeating Ranee Narah of Congress. This time, he contested from river island Majuli and earned the sobriquet 'migratory bird' from Gogoi.
In spite of having represented many constituencies, a striking feature of his political career has been the fact that Sonowal has consistently failed to leave his mark on any of them. With the exception of the scrapping of the IM(DT) Act, Sonowal has nothing significant to show on his CV for all these years of being a public representative.
This might change with his election as CM, or so hope the residents of Majuli. Once Asia's biggest river island, Majuli, which is shrinking due to cyclic erosion by the Brahmaputra, has two dreams - to see Sonowal as CM and to travel down the Centre's promised bridge connecting it with the mainland.