Prafulla Kumar Mahanta is an Indian Politician who was the leader of the Assam Movement, a former Chief Minister of Assam and the former President of the Asom Gana Parishad, a major political party in the Indian state of Assam. He became the chief minister in the state when the AGP came to power in 1985, becoming the youngest Chief Minister of an Indian state. He served as the chief minister of the state for two terms, 1985–1990 and 1996–2001. He is a former president of the All Assam Students Union, an organization that spearheaded the Assam Movement between 1979–1985. In August 2005, his membership in the AGP was terminated. He floated a new political party, Asom Gana Parishad on 15 September 2005. Despite allegations of secret killings he organized against families of ULFA members, documented in the report by the Saikia Commission to the Assam Assembly, Mahanta was missed from political leadership in the state. He was reinducted into the AGP after the AGP was dissolved during the Presidency of Chandra Mohan Patowary, and regained a prominent position in the party. In a 2010 interview on NDTV's Walk the Talk with Shekhar Gupta, editor-in-chief of The Indian Express, Mahanta said:
"For the sake of the integrity and security of India, we are ready to take any blame. If the insurgent groups attack our forces, then they must have the right to respond. However, the charge against me on extra judicial killings of the ULFA sympathisers is to malign my image."
In the same interview, he said that unknown agencies of the Congress Party had conspired in massacres during the Assam Movement in the early eighties. On 4 September 2010 he was unanimously elected as the Leader of Opposition in the Assam Legislative Assembly. Aside from the current chief minister of the state, Mahanta is regarded as the most powerful and influential politician of Assam. On 21 October 2013, representatives from eleven political parties of the North-east region met to form a new political front, the North-East Regional Political Front, to protect the interests of the region's people. Mahanta was appointed the front's chief adviser. On 14 July 2014 he resigned as president of Asom Gana Parishad after its debacle in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
