Bhrigu Phukan

Bhrigu Phukan was a leader of AGP and a cabinet minister in Government of Assam. He was one of the four signatories to the Assam Accord. Phukan was born in April 1956. He was a graduate of Dibrugarh University.

He was the general secretary of All Assam Students Union (AASU) during 1979-85 and jointly spearheaded the Assam Movement with Prafulla Kumar Mahanta over the issue of Bangladeshi influx. He was one of the four signatories of the Assam Accord of 1985 along with Prafulla Kumar Mahanta.

In December 1985, he became Home minister at the age of 29 after the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) won the historic Assembly elections. Phukan later fell out with Mahanta and in February 1991 walked out of AGP to form the Natun Asom Gana Parishad. The two factions united three years later and Phukan was appointed executive president of the AGP. He quit the AGP again in 1996 following differences with Mahanta and joined another political party.

He was elected for three consecutive terms from the prestigious Jalukbari constituency to the Assam Legislative Assembly from 1985. In 2001, Phukan lost as an Nationalist Congress Party candidate to Himanta Biswa Sarma of the Congress, a student leader whom he had earlier groomed and who joined BJP in 2015.

Phukan again returned to the AGP in 2004 and contested the Lok Sabha (parliament) elections from Guwahati constituency but lost.

He died of jaundice on 20 March 2006 in a Delhi hospital.