Guwahati/Nagaon, Sept. 14: Former AGP president Prafulla Kumar Mahanta today accused ?a militant group? of trying to prevent him from making a comeback as chief minister, virtually endorsing the Congress? allegation that the regional party had taken disciplinary action against its founder member at the Ulfa?s behest.

?A militant group is trying to malign my image with the help of a particular section of the media to prevent me from becoming chief minister again,? Mahanta said.

Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister and senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh recently told newspersons in Guwahati that the Ulfa dictated AGP president Brindaban Goswami to take disciplinary action against Mahanta.

Mahanta attracted the Ulfa?s ire for his tough stand against the banned militant group and the ?secret killings? of several relatives of the outfit?s members and their sympathisers during his second tenure as chief minister from 1996-2001.

Loyalists of the former chief minister, too, claimed that a conspiracy against their leader was hatched by the Ulfa and some surrendered militants with the support of political force prior to the AGP presidential election at Tezpur in January.

One of them said some surrendered Ulfa militants distributed pamphlets prior to the election, asking party members to back Goswami. The pamphlets equated him with culture icon Jyotiprasad Agarwalla, who was also a resident of Tezpur.

Keeping alive the suspense over his plans, Mahanta himself did not rule out the possibility of forming a new party. However, he claimed to have made it clear to his supporters that he was against any ?division in the party as of now?.

The former chief minister made the statement a day after his supporters threatened a non-cooperation movement against the party leadership if the decision to bar him from holding any party post was not lifted by Thursday.

Mahanta said regional political forces of the state should come forward to build a ?united platform? to prevent the Congress from coming back to power in the 2006 Assembly elections.

The former AGP chief, who is camping in Nagaon for the past two days, will address party workers from his Berhampur Assembly constituency tomorrow.

The attempt to pursue Goswami to review the disciplinary action suffered a jolt when a delegation of Mahanta supporters went back from Guwahati without meeting the party chief.

?We went to Guwahati to reiterate our demand that the decision against our leader should be reviewed. We also wanted to inform the party chief about our decision to launch a non- cooperation movement if our demand was not heeded. But we were told he was not in Guwahati. So we came back,? a member of the delegation said.