Sarbanada Sonowal's steady rise to the top

From student politics to joining Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), then switching to the saffron party and becoming a Union minister, Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP's) chief ministerial candidate in Assam Sarbanada Sonowal's journey to the peak has been a steady climb marked by twists and turns.

54-year-old Sonowal's name as the party's face came as no surprise as he came with a clean image and no baggage and enjoyed the confidence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He was included in the Union Cabinet though it left many senior party members from the state none too happy considering that he had joined the BJP only in 2011.

The state unit, however, put up a united front in the elections under Sonowal, who also took charge as the party chief before the polls, to script history as the first state in the North East where the BJP has come to power.

Credited with challenging the controversial Illegal Migrants' Determination by Tribunal Act in the Supreme Court, which finally scrapped it, Sonowal's foray into politics began with his joining the All Assam Students' Union (AASU), where he served as its president from 1992 to 1999.

A major figure in the students' politics of the region, Sonowal, a law graduate, also became the chairman of North East Students' Organisation from 1996 to 2000.

From AASU, he predictably went on to join the Asom Gana Parishad in 2001, founded by his erstwhile seniors in the students' organisation, and was elected the party's MLA from Upper Assam's Moran constituency in 2001.

In 2004, he went on to successfully contest the Lok Sabha polls, wresting the seat for the first time from the Congress by defeating former Union minister Paban Singh Ghatowar.

He, however, lost the 2009 parliamentary polls to Ghatowar from the same constituency which was once considered a Congress bastion.