Rural poll drives a wedge between coalition partners

AGP-BJP divide going too far!

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, March 11: The AGP-BJP divide on the forthcoming panchayat poll has seemingly driven a wedge between the two coalition partners at Dispur with the former going too far when it says that if need be it may go solo in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll and the 2021 Assembly poll in the State.

It is as clear as daylight that the ruling coalition at Dispur has fallen apart as individual parties – BJP, AGP and BPF – on the issue of panchayat poll. On Saturday, the AGP and the BJP held parallel meetings in Guwahati on panchayat poll.

At its meeting in the city on Sunday, AGP leader and former minister Kamala Kanta Kalita was on record going too far when he said ‘if need be, we may go alone in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll and 2021 Assembly poll in the State’. This essentially indicates that the wedge (here the panchayat poll) is lethal enough for the ruling coalition at Dispur to divide it into its individual party components – AGP, BJP and BPF. Even as the BTAD does not have any panchayat constituencies under it, the BPF is going to field its candidates in the panchayat poll outside the Bodo politico-administrative structure.

The BJP is also not lagging behind when it comes to panchayat poll to get its agenda – ‘parliament to panchayat’ rather than ‘panchayat to parliament’ motto fulfilled. At the party’s state panchayat poll magement committee meeting held in the city on Sunday with state party president Ranjit Kumar Dass in the chair Das appealed to all party workers, including booth-level ones, to work hard so as to win the panchayat poll in the State.

President of 35-member State Panchayat Poll Magement Committee Bimal Oswal reminded all party leaders and cadres at the meeting party’s tiol president Amit Shah’s motto ‘Panchayat-Parliament’. “Since we’ve already captured the Parliament, we need to get the job well accomplished by capturing the panchayats,” Oswal said. He appealed to all booth-level workers of the party to work hard so that the motto of Shah comes to fruition. 

BJP’s tiol president Amit Shah is supposed to visit Assam by the end of this month. Panchayat poll is already due in the State. Sources in the State Election Commission (SEC) say that the rural poll in the State may be conducted by the end of April or May.