GUWAHATI: Opposition Congress took responsibility for the defeat in the state byelections for five seats as BJP and its allies registered an emphatic win.
Assam PCC president Bhupen Borah said people voted for the BJP, but it would have ruled Assam for the next four-and-half years anyway. The BJP-led alliance is well ahead of the magic figure of 64 in the state assembly.
Despite biting the dust once again in six months, Borah thanked the All Assam Students’ Union (Aasu)-backed Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP), the only party which the Congress took on board this election after the ‘Mahajot’ petered out. “Victory or defeat in the five seats won’t change the government in Assam. We congratulate the chief minister of Assam and hope the aspirations of the people get fulfilled by the government,” said Borah.
The Assam PCC chief defended its decision to dissolve the ‘Mahajot’, even as the vote share in the Gossaigaon seat reflected that a combine of Congress, Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) and AIUDF could have defeated BJP ally UPPL in the Bodoland Territorial Region assembly segment.
Opposition disunity has been blamed by several political analysts for the saffron surge in the byelections when price rise of fuel and other commodities have pinched the pockets of commoners. Borah, in a news conference, however, said the BPF sent a proposal to the Congress to relieve them of the united front long before.
“The outcome of the byelection is not linked to the Mahajot,” he said, adding that a review meeting of Congress results will be held in the presence of senior party leaders.
Borah said there is an undercurrent in favour of the BJP as voters fear their constituencies may lag behind if non-BJP legislators are elected in the bypolls. In the three seats of Thowra, Mariani and Bhabanipur, the BJP fielded turncoats who resigned as Congress and AIUDF MLAs just after the last assembly poll results.
In upper Assam’s Majuli seat, represented by former CM Sarbananda Sonowal since 2016, Borah said Congress will help the AJP. This will mark the beginning of a new chapter in alliance politics of Congress in the state after it went solo in all the five seats in this byelection.
Congress did not entertain Raijor Dal president Akhil Gogoi’s repeated appeal of stitching an alliance with the grand old party. AJP president and former Aasu general secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoi, however, embarked on a campaign to help the Congress, indicating a new coalition in the future.
Borah said Congress will never support religious polarization and termed the RSS and Badruddin Ajmal’s AIUDF as two sides of a coin.
