Setback for AGP-BJP alliance?

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, March 12: Will the AGP-BJP alliance work? The Saffron party in the State feels that its alliance partner AGP is resorting to run roughshod on the issue of fielding candidates, going beyond clearly-spelt out seat-sharing agreement.

Be that as it may, the issue of alliance seems to prove costly for both the parties, as of now. While the AGP has been split with the formation of the AGP(Anchalikatabadi Mancha) that has already declared two lists of candidates, another party has been floated with the me and style Timool BJP that mostly comprises BJP ticket aspirants who have not got party tickets. It has also announced its list of candidates for the Assembly polls.

The situation has come to such a pass that there is doubt if the AGP-BJP alliance in the State will at all work. It all happened since the declaration of AGP candidates by party president Atul Bora on March 10. Going beyond what has been spelt out at the meeting between the two parties in New Delhi, Bora has fielded Prabin Hazarika for Biswath Chariali and Mukundaram Choudhury for Kalaigaon even as, in accordance with the agreement reached between the two parties, these two seats were given to the BJP. This is not all. Bora was on record saying that the two parties would field candidates for oboicha, Hajo and Dhakuakha LACs for friendly contest. With such a declaration, the BJP feels, the AGP is running roughshod over the issue of alliance.

An aggrieved BJP president Sarbanda Sonowal had to react to such a statement from the AGP president, and said in a statement issued to the press yesterday that ‘there is a clear understanding on the issue of constituency distribution between BJP-AGP-BPF and this was clearly declared by Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare JP dda. The understanding between the BJP-AGP alliance is for 24 constituencies and between BJP-BPF alliance is for 12 constituencies’.           

So much so that the AGP spree for fielding more candidates has also infringed a few BPF LACs.