Sarbananda Sonowal: To Set His Mark In Dibrugarh

Sarbananda Sonowal, a BJP candidate from Dibrugarh constituency in the Lok Sabha election 2024, is currently serving as the Cabinet Minister of Port, Shipping and Waterways of Assam and Cabinet Minister of Assam. He is also a member of the Rajya Sabha representing Assam since 2021.

Mr. Sonowal started his political journey in student politics, as the president of the powerful All Assam Student’s Union (AASU) from 1992 to 1999. He made his political debut by joining the Assam Gana Parishad (AGP)  and was elected as MLA in the Moran constituency in 2001. Following his political journey he won the 2004 Lok Sabha elections from Dibrugarh and is also known to be the first non-Congress candidate to win the seat.

He played an important role in the illegal immigrant issue of Assam by taking it to the Supreme Court, where the court declared the Illegal Migrants (Determination By Tribunal) Act (IMDT Act) as unconstitutional in 2005. For his fight against illegal migration, he was fondly known as ‘Jatiya Nayak’

He lost the Lok Sabha election of 2009 in the Dibrugarh constituency and later made his political path through joining the BJP in 2011, where he was appointed as the president of  BJP’s Assam unit. 

In 2016 through his remarkable victory in Majuli, he marked himself as the first Chief Minister of Assam from the BJP by securing 67.53% which was 71,436 of the total votes. In the 2021 assembly elections, Mr Sonowal was re-elected from Majuli. Despite the BJP”s victory, Mr Sonowal resigned as chief minister and proposed Himanta Biswa Sarma’s name as his successor.