Assam BJP still to have 'right trade call' to woo voters

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Nov 14: After the Bihar poll debacle, the BJP in Assam is still to get the ‘right trade call’ to woo voters in the 2016 Assembly elections.

The party has a target -- Mission 84 -- set soon after the massive win (seven of the 14 Lok Sabha seats) in the  last Lok Sabha polls in the State. After rendra Modi coming at the helm of affairs as the Prime Minister, the party gained its strength by making breakthrough into Tea Estates, ethnic tribes and even in minority areas. The membership drive of the party has set a record with the enrollment of 25 lakh new members, including five lakh from the minority community, in the State.

This is quite contrast to the almost no organizatiol base of the party in the State when it fought the last Lok Sabha elections. This was a time when the party did not even have booth-level committees in a number of districts in the State. rendra Modi’s ringing promises on a number of issues and the Modi wave helped the party come up with a big win in the State. However, the party had to suffer an anti-wave mainly for its U-turn on a number of issues like big dams, India-Bangladesh land swap deal, deportation of foreigners and the like.

The Bihar poll debacle has left an open and tough challenge for the party in Assam where other parties have been contemplating on teaming up so as to keep the BJP at bay. Even as the party has gained much strength with the joining of leaders from other parties like the Congress and the AGP, and organizations like the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuva Chatra Parishad (AJYCP), leaders of ethnic tribes and Tea Tribes, the 2016 Assembly election in Assam is not likely to be a cake walk for the Saffron party.   

After the Bihar setback, the party is till to alyse the reasons behind its strategy not clikcing in Bihar, as though the party is yet to come out of the jerk it received from Bihar voters. As though to cap it all, senior party leaders like LK Advani, Muruli Manohar Joshi, Santa Kumar and others wrote letters to the party chief. The party is yet to meet to find where it went wrong in Bihar.

In the post-Bihar drubbing, the party in Assam is yet to receive any directive from their high command on the right ‘trade call’ they should use to woo the voters in the State. Only developments that took place in the party at the tiol level are the holding of the BJP Parliamentary Committee meeting and party president Amit Shah meeting RSS chief Mohan Bhagat. A meeting involving all and sundry in the top rung of the party is still be held. This situation at the tiol level has its fallout in Assam where the State executive Committee is yet to be held.

Meanwhile, the organizatiol programmes of the party in the State are going on in Assam as scheduled, and they will continue till December. As part of the schedule, tiol BJP presdient Amit Shah is going to visit Assam on November 27, and it will be followed by Union Home Minister Rajth Singh.

BJP sources in Assam feel that the need of the hour for the party is a positive change in the strategy and to get a new pace. If the U-turn on a number of promises is set to affect the party, positive and bold steps like providing ST status to the six ethnic groups and bringing ULFA general secretary Anup Chetia to India from Bangladesh will have their positive effect for the party. The presence of Chetia is set to add  pace to the peace process with the ULFA.

Party sources here said that ‘development and corruption of the Congress’ will be the major poll issues for the party in 2016.