A disappointed Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) shut its doors on an alliance with the BJP for the Assembly polls, after a unanimous resolution by its general assembly on Wednesday.
The move could come as a relief to Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi who may now face a fractured Opposition with a similar vote base, rather than a consolidated one.
AGP president Atul Bora said: “We wanted to ally with the BJP to make sure the Congress stays out of power. But the saffron camp did not honour our offer. So, we have decided to contest the polls alone.”
According to top sources in both the BJP and the AGP, the latter had been bargaining for at least 35 seats out of 117 with the BJP, who was prepared to offer only 14.
“Both of us were in single digits in the last Assembly polls, but in the 2014 general election, the BJP won seven Lok Sabha seats, while the AGP failed to open its account.
Many AGP workers have moved to the BJP in the last few months, and the BJP expects to appropriate the Assamese identity plank that had propelled the AGP to power in 1985,” said a source in the BJP.
The State unit of the BJP had been against the alliance, confident that it could restrict the AGP to single digits again.
