Ahead of the Assam Assembly elections, BJP’s coalition partner in the state, the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) has taken an unceremonious exit and joined hands with the grand old party of Congress currently helming the ‘Grand Alliance’. BPF President Hagrama Mohilary took to Twitter on Saturday afternoon to announce the acrimonious split.
“To work for Peace, Unity and Development the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) has decided to join hands with MAHAJATH in the forthcoming Assam Assembly Election. We shall no longer maintain friendship or alliance with BJP,” tweeted BPF President Hagrama Mohilary.
To work for Peace, Unity and Development the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) has decided to join hands with MAHAJATH in the forthcoming Assam Assembly Election. We shall no longer maintain friendship or alliance with BJP.
— Hagrama Mohilary (@HagramaOnline) February 27, 2021
While at first glance, it might appear that BJP has been dealt some damage ahead of the crucial elections but looking at the state of affairs closely, one can easily infer that BJP had already anticipated such a possibility and thus had a contingency plan ready in its bag.
Reported by TFI, BJP had gone into a formal alliance with United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL) and Gana Suraksha Party (GSP) last year. Things had gone south in the Bodoland Territorial Region elections, held in December last year. Both BJP and BPF engaged in a series of verbal tirades with insults flying from both quarters.
Read more: BTC election results prove that BJP is going to win big in Assam
The BJP leadership also mocked the BPF for not leaving their posts of cabinet ministers in the Sonowal cabinet. The election result witnessed the BJP and UPPL forming the council in BTC with the former winning 9 seats and the latter 12. BFP was sidelined and it felt only a formality when the party would take the exit out of the alliance.
Several opinion polls have projected that BJP should be gearing up for its second successive crowning in the state while Congress and now its partner BPF will have to brave another 5 years in the cold, wilderness of Assam.
Thus, the disengagement of BPF is not going to hurt the BJP in any sense whatsoever. In the last elections, BPF had only won 12 seats out of the 126 seats it contested upon. The regional party has charted a self-detructive road for itself by siding with a yester-year party like Congress.
Elections in the state will be conducted in a three-phase manner on March 27, April 1 and April 6. BPF was in the coalition with the BJP with the sole purpose of wielding the power that the saffron party had amassed in the state by booting out Congress.
It was BJP that crashed Congress’ hopes in Assam by mounting a spirited campaign in 2016 by defeating late Tarun Gogoi, thereby bringing an end to his 15-year tenure as the Chief Minister. With the excess baggage taking itself out, BJP now has the freedom to mount an even aggressive campaign to push the likes of Congress and AIUDF to the fringes.