A tale of two Mahantas

Gauripur in Dhubri district is the home of Pramathesh Baruah, the original screen Devdas, Bollywood's ultimate tragic hero.

Nearly 50 years after Baruah's death, this town suddenly finds itself the focus of attention in the minority-dominated Dhubri Lok Sabha constituency. For, amid the electoral frenzy, it has been witness to the re-enactment of Devdas in real life, albeit with a twist.

The heroine of this "tragedy" is Jayashree Goswami-Mahanta, wife of former Assam chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, contesting as an Independent from the Dhubri seat. The hero, obviously, is her husband, strategically "separated" by the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) from his wife.

Goswami-Mahanta, a former Rajya Sabha member, was expelled from the AGP for filing her nomination from Dhubri in defiance of party candidate Afzalur Rahman, a former Congressman.

AGP president Brindaban Goswami lost no time in giving a virtually sidelined Mahanta the job of a campaign manager for Nagaon and Kaliabor, two central Assam constituencies.

Though seen by Mahanta loyalists in the AGP as a ploy to keep the couple apart, it saved the former CM some embarrassment, caught as he was between commitment to his party and emotional bonding with his wife.

Goswami-Mahanta is banking on her image as a woman wronged by the AGP and, earlier, by her husband who allegedly had liaisons with a married "Chandramukhi". "The people are behind me," she said, lashing out at the AGP leadership for letting the party degenerate into a band of opportunists.

She  had tasted a humiliating defeat at the hands of the BJP in the Nagaon parliamentary seat in 1998. However, the BJP is not seen as a strong force in Dhubri.