Meet the man who sent a three-time CM Gogoing

B JP went to the polls chanting 'Sabka Anand - Sarbananda' in Assam, and it was indeed happy times for the saffron party on Thursday with its 53-year-old CM nominee knocking out the octogenarian, three-time Congress chief minister Tarun Gogoi in a tarun (youth) versus Tarun face-off.
First elected to the assembly in 2001, Sarbananda Sonowal took centrestage in 2005 when he won a case in the Supreme Court against the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983.The Act, widely perceived to be protective of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, was scrapped, and Sonowal accorded a hero's welcome in Guwahati on his return from Delhi. People sho- wered petals on him all the way from the airport to the city, and he became a 'jatiya nayak' (national hero) to his admirers.
Going into these polls, BJP put its might behind the Lakhimpur MP, with PM Modi endorsing the Union sports minister as the 'heera' (diamond) of his Cabinet. The gamble has paid off. This will only be the second time that Assam is going to have a tribal CM since Jogendra Nath Hazarika, also from the Sonowal Kachari community, in the 70s. Sonowal will also be the second former AASU president after his mentor Prafulla Kumar Mahanta to occupy the high office.
Sonowal, who has a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Dibrugarh University and a degree in law from Gauhati University, is overtly superstitious and is partial to godmen. His houses in Dibrugarh and Delhi are filled with feng shui objects, and he wears gemstones on every finger. His colleagues say he never misses a chance to visit a temple.
Even the colour of his shirt is dictated by planetary positions, sources say. Sonowal's days of activism too are reflected in his attire - he wears only black trousers and buffed black shoes, continuing with the style AASU general secretary Samujjal Bhattacharya and he introduced during their student union days from 1992 to 1999.
The youngest of four brothers, Sonowal is known to be a loner. He has few friends and is a bachelor. Some complain that he dumps inconvenient friends, but others say he does that to avoid controversies.
He has changed parties and seats in a career spanning 15 years. After debuting from Moran assembly constituency in 2001 on an AGP ticket, he won the Dibrugarh Lok Sabha seat in 2004, but left the party in 2011 to join BJP. In 2014, Sonowal won the Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat but contested the 2016 assembly polls from Majuli, earning the epithet 'migratory bird' from Gogoi.
Although Sonowal has represented various constituenci- es, critics say he hasn't left his mark on any. His sole political achievement seems to be getting the IM(DT) Act scrapped. But people in Majuli hope he will make a difference to their lives. Once the world's biggest river island, Majuli has been shrinking due to erosion by the Brahmaputra. Its residents ha- ve two wishes - to see Sonowal as the CM, and to travel down the Centre's promised bridge linking it to the mainland.