Meet Ripun Bora, the man who forged Assam's 'Mahajoot'

Bora, a Congress veteran, has been projected as a frontrunner to the Chief Minster's post

Ripun Bora, a two-time MLA and a Rajya Sabha MP from Assam is not just the face of the Congress party in Assam, but is the man who stitched together the Grand Alliance or 'Mahajoot' of six parties to dethrone the BJP.

Bora, a Congress veteran who is being projected as a frontrunner to the Chief Minster's post is also the man who has the unenviable task of keeping five other parties -- three from the Left, the Bodoland People's Front, and the AIUDF -- satisfied.

The 60-year-old will contest form Northern Assam's Gohpur, which will go to polls on March 27. Bora was elected to the Assam Assembly from this seat in 2001 and 2006.

Appointed President of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) in 2016 by Sonia Gandhi, the same year he was nominated as a Rajya Sabha MP, Bora has come out all guns blazing against the BJP. He has described PM Narendra Modi, who has been visiting Assam to campaign for the BJP, as a "migratory bird."

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And while the BJP and a few Congress members have described the Congress's alliance with Maulana Badaruddin Ajmal's All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) as a handicap and a desperate attempt to return to power, Bora unabashedly has embraced it.

The 'Mahajoot', he had said while forging it in September, was stitched to 'dethrone the BJP.'

However, like any other politician, Bora too has a number of controversies that surround him, most notably his alleged role in the murder of Daniel Topno, an influential student leader from the tea workers community, who in fact contested against the APCC chief in 1996 for the Gohpur seat.

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Topno, who was murdered on September 27, 2000, finished third in the contest for the Gohpur Assembly seat, but appeared to eat into Bora's margin. Bora lost to an Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) candidate by a mere 2,000 votes.

Although acquitted by the Kamrup District and Sessions court in 2014, Bora, who even spent a year in Tihar jail for bribing a CBI official to fudge the outcome of the murder investigation, the matter remains under hearing at the Gauhati High Court.

A few party members in Assam had in August last year written to Sonia Gandhi, asking for Bora's removal as PCC chief as he was yet to be given a clean chit by the state High Court in the Daniel Topno murder case. The 10 signatories urged the Congress chief to remove him in the party's 'greater interest.'

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Around the same time, Bora was one of eight Rajya Sabha MPs who were suspended for heckling Deputy Chairman Harivansh Singh during the passing of the Farm Bills.

Bora, however, remains unfazed. Despite murmurs of dissent from a few members in Assam, the 60-year-old has the support of Sonia Gandhi. He had however offered his resignation letter following the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 after Congress's dismal show. However, it is not known if he went through with the offer.

That he is a force to reckon with has been evident from the beginning of his political career. Despite being arrested in 2008 (for bribing a CBI official in Topno case), expelled from the party as a result, and not contesting the 2011 or 2016 elections, Bora has never been too far away from the thick of things.

His wife, Monika Bora was Gohpur's elected representative in 2011.

Should Congress come to power in Assam, and Bora be made the Chief Minister, there are very few who would want to antagonise a powerful figure like Ripun Bora.