Ahead of results, BJP gung-ho, Congress shaky

Our Bureau

Guwahati/ GAON, May 18: Ahead of the counting of votes for the assembly elections, the BJP appeared upbeat while a shaky Congress was still hoping against hope that the exit poll forecasts would be proved wrong.

BJP’s chief ministerial candidate Sarbanda Sonowal, who will stay tonight at Majuli from where he is contesting the elections, told reporters that the record turnout has proved that the people wanted a change.

“Tomorrow the picture will become clear. We will form the government. The people had sought a change for a beautiful and secure Assam and so voted for the BJP-led alliance. Fifteen years of misrule of the Congress will end tomorrow. We will try to give our best,” he said.

AGP president Atul Bora also said the Congress will face the fallout of its anti-people policies tomorrow.

“The Congress is still not convinced… but they will be when the results are out by 12 pm tomorrow,” Bora said.

Former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, who courted a controversy over his remarks on BJP’s chief ministerial candidate, said that there is a political conspiracy against him.

A day after BJP MP Rajen Gohain said Mahanta nurtured a dream to be CM again, the AGP leader said, “A group of politicians are allegedly involved in a political conspiracy against me. I have no such aspiration to be the chief ministerial candidate of a party that contests only 24 out of 126 assembly seats.”

“The BJP is the big brother in the alliance. So turally, the CM will be from the party. But when in an alliance, such things should be shared and discussed with the partners,” he said.

Mahanta said the BJP-led alliance is set to form the government in the State. “Had the AGP and BJP fought the elections on their own strengths, the Congress would have retained power,” he said.

Congress leaders were mostly confined to their constituencies, and did not give any reactions to the media.

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi will be at Guwahati, while APCC president Anjan Dutta, who is not well, is admitted at a hospital in Delhi.

Gogoi told a TV channel that even in the last assembly elections, exit poll surveys had said the Congress cannot form the government. “It was proved wrong. Even this time, it will be the same. We will form the government,” he said.