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BJP's rising star from Assam

It has been a meteoric rise for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharak Kabindra Purkayastha, who is a founder member of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Assam.

He took to active politics soon after the Emergency. Purkayastha unsuccessfully contested the 1980 and 1985 elections as the Janata Party and BJP nominee respectively, but failed to make it to the state assembly.

His first success came in 1991 when he became one of the BJP's two MPs from Assam. He defeated Nurul Hooda, the veteran CPI-M leader, but he lost the 1996 election as Santosh Mohan Deb returned from Tripura to contest the Silchar seat. He avenged that defeat by comprehensively beating Deb by over 20,000 votes this time.

A teacher, he served at the Narsingh high school in Silchar and later became principal of the Ramakrishna Nagar multipurpose higher secondary school.

Purkayastha, a popular figure in the Barak valley, was the state BJP general secretary initially and vice-president for three consecutive terms.

UNI

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