Senior leader rejoins BJP after 10 years

Senior leader rejoins BJP after 10 years

A Correspondent

DHUBRI, May 13: Kalyan Purkayastha, a senior leader of Dhubri district BJP, rejoined the BJP formally after a gap of 10 years at the State party headquarter, Vajpayee Bhavan in presence of State party president Ranjit Kumar Dass on Sunday. Dass welcomed him into the party and Kalyan Purkayastha joined formally along with a host of other new entrants. Purkayastha had left BJP in 2008 and joined Congress. But in 2015 after seven years, he also bade farewell to Congress and since then he had been trying to get into the BJP. Purkayastha, an ardent RSS activist, had come to Dhubri from Silchar in 1978 as pracharak (organizer) to look after the affairs and strengthen the organization in lower Assam.

When RSS political wing Jana Sangha was reconstituted as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1980, Dhubri district unit was also formed and Purkayastha joined the party in 1988 and soon became general secretary. Thereafter, party candidate Dhruba Kumar Sen was elected as the first BJP MLA from Dhubri in 1991. Sen was also the lone BJP MLA from Brahmaputra Valley while Purkayastha was the general secretary and worked hard to get Sen elected , a party source said.

Sources also said that after the 1991 assembly election, Purkayatha shot to fame as being a firebrand leader of the party and became chairman of Dhubri Municipal Board in 1997 and completed his five-year term and tenure as chairman. Though a section of party leaders opposed his re-entry into the party, the RSS lobby all along remained behind him and cleared all hurdles in his joining the party.

When contacted, Purkayastha told The Sentinel that it was like a homecoming and there was great solace in his heart and mind that finally he made it. “I will sincerely work for the party and fulfil whatever responsibility and works are entrusted by the party for strengthening the grassroots-level organizations. My focus will also be to follow the party line of activities among the people and build trust and faith in the party,” Purkayastha replied when asked about his priority of work in the days to come.

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