On form, many consider the Assembly elections in Assam the Bharatiya Janata Party’s to lose, what with the Tarun Gogoi-led Congress government, in power for the past 15 years, literally facing anti-incumbency thrice over. The party, in less than two years, has catapulted from a growing force to political heavyweight in the State. It first rode the “Modi wave” to take centre stage in Assam in 2014, the party’s high-decibel campaign centring on development fetching it half the State’s 14 Lok Sabha constituencies in the general election. And there has been no looking back, electorally speaking, since: in February 2015, the BJP swept the municipal elections, winning nearly half the wards and getting a majority in 30 municipal boards and town committees.
Assam is, by all accounts, the only one among the clutch of States going to the polls in April-May where the BJP is in with a realistic chance of grabbing power. Not willing to take any chances, the party has proceeded to stitch up alliances with local players to form a rainbow coalition. In January, it tied up with the Hagrama Mohilary-led Bodoland People’s Front. There have been arrangements worked out in the intervening period with minor outfits of the Tiwas and the Rabhas, but the big one was timed for the announcement of the election dates in early March: a pre-poll alliance with the Asom Gana Parishad.
Tumult after tie-upThings have, however, unravelled disconcertingly for the BJP in the aftermath of the AGP tie-up. Ostensibly “upset” over the central leadership not heeding inputs from the grassroots, two BJP leaders, Sankar Prasad Ray — the previous president of the All-Assam Students’ Union who had joined the party only last September — and Sabda Ram Rabha joined the Congress on March 8. There was greater disquiet on the other side, with AGP vice-president Durga Das Boro walking out into the Congress fold.
While much of the internal opposition to the tie-up on both sides stems from personal interest, the logic of the ascendant BJP tying up with the evanescent AGP is curious. BJP detractors of the alliance say the AGP does not bring much to the table.
The tie-up with the BPF is going to result in a net gain anyhow for the BJP, considering the fact that the latter has a marginal presence in the Bodoland Territorial Areas Districts.
Ally or liability?The ‘Modi wave’, which yielded such a bumper harvest for the BJP in Assam in 2014, might have lost some of its salience over time but the party, learning from its Bihar debacle, zeroed in on a local stump face as early as January in the form of Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal. But has it glossed over another takeaway from its mauling by the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ (Grand Alliance) of Lalu, Nitish and Co.? In Bihar, it left as many as 84 seats for its partners, leaving itself only 159 seats to contest. The BJP’s tally on results day turned out to be a shocker, all of 53 seats, but the party bled even more because of its allies who ended up winning only five seats between them out of the 84 they contested.
As the BJP heads into another high-stakes election, the primordial instinct of not leaving any vote behind has kicked in again.
The anxiety of the home stretch — of being almost there, but not quite — has resulted in the party parting with 40 out of the 126 seats for its allies, leaving a Bradmanesque strike rate for itself to attain its “Mission 84”. Between friendly fights and force multipliers, will the BJP’s Assam mahagathbandhan reach the magic figure of sixty-four?
