Congress to gain from broken AGP-BJP ties, feel Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: A section of BJP MLAs is worried sick about their political career in post BJP-AGP divorce. They feel that the BJP and the AGP fighting elections without any alliance between them in the State will only make the ground fertile for the Congress.

These BJP MLAs want to say that despite being defeated in 2014 Lok Sabha and 2016 Assembly elections in the State, the Congress has its presence almost in every LAC (Legislative Assembly Constituency) and Parliamentary constituency in Assam. The results of the recently held panchayat poll in the State, according to these BJP MLAs, bear testimony to this fact. They assert that the Congress came second, but not a distant second, in the recent rural poll in the State. While the BJP won 212 of the 420 ZPCs (zila parishad constituencies), the Congress got 147 seats, only 65 seats behind the ruling party.

On the 2016 Assembly election in the State, these BJP MLAs feel that the BJP’s six-to-sixty jump in strength in the State Assembly could be attributed to the AGP-BJP alliance. The same is behind the AGP’s jump from ten-to-fourteen in the State House, they say, adding that the BJP-AGP alliance was successful in consolidating the anti-Congress votes in the State. Any division of the anti-Congress votes in the State now is supposed to pave the way for the Congress’ win, they assert. They also feel that ideologically the AGP and the BJP are not much apart.

On the post-Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 situation in Assam, these MLAs of the ruling party feel that the BJP should not let the AGP-BJP alliance severed. Even a few of these MLAs have already talked to Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on this issue, informally.

A few AGP MLAs also feel that the Congress will be gainer in the AGP severing its ties with the BJP.

The 2019 Lok Sabha poll is barely a few months away, and political combinations and permutations are the order of the day in the State now.

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