Sensing its chance to perform strongly in the Assam elections slated in April, the BJP has sealed alliance with —Bodoland Peoples’ Front (BPF) and is also in talks with the United People’s Front — a coalition of parties representing different tribes — and sent feelers to the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), to take on the Congress, which has ruled the North-Eastern State for last 15 years.
An announcement of the BJP-BPF tie up, the fist pre-poll alliance, would be formally made on Tuesday at Guwahati in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Bodos dominate four large districts in lower Assam and decide the fate of at least 15 seats in the State.
Riding the Modi-wave, the BJP had won half of the 14 lok Sabha seats in 2014 in Assam. The party is, however, cautiously assessing its strategy in the North-Eastern State, which has been the focus of several developmental projects announced by the Central Government.
With the Bihar experience at hand, where it had not named any State leader as its Chief Ministerial candidate and badly lost the poll, the BJP is to project former Central minister and State president Sarbananda Sonowal as its Chief Ministerial candidate in Assam. The Congress has declared that it would go alone in the State. This happens amid reports that initial talks between it and the perfume baron Badruddin Ajmal-led All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) to enter into an alliance and prevent division of non-BJP votes have come unstuck. As per sources, an attempt to have a ‘grand alliance’ of non- BJP party in Assam, similar to one in Bihar may, however, continue well before the polls in the State.
Sonowal hopes that the BJP-led-alliance would score majority in Assam. According to BPF president Hagrama Mohilary, the poll-alliance augurs well for Assam and development in Bodoland Territorial council areas which would be getting an additional Rs 1000 crore of central fund.
BPF was backing the Congress government in 2011as Himanta Biswa Sarma, the former minister in the Gogoi government who has joined BJP, had then successfully wooed it.
The BJP is understood to be in talks with United People’s Front - representing an array of tribes in Assam which may impact on around three dozen assembly segments. The seeks to fight for “some common causes of indigenous communities” that have not been resolved for many decades .BPF is also part of this front.
“ Our strong stand against Bangaldeshi migration into the state would draw lot of support from people of Assam..”, said a senior BJP leader. The party has already launched ‘Mission 84’ to win a majority of the 126 assembly seats in the Assam Assembly.
Central Ministers Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Sushma Swaraj, Smiriti Irani, Piush Goel, Kiran Rijiju and Party leaders have started visiting Assam immediately after the Bihar poll results last year. BJP president Amit Shah has been regularly camping in the state to lead the discussions with the possible allies in largest state of the seven sisters in the North-East with multi-ethnic dimensions.