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Tag: Asom Gana Parishad

  • Be wary of BJP or it’ll swallow you: Congress to Conrad Sangma’s NPP in Meghalaya

    By Express News Service

    GUWAHATI: The Congress has cautioned the National People’s Party (NPP), which heads the ruling coalition in Meghalaya, to be wary of the BJP or be swallowed by it.

    Citing an example, the Congress said the BJP had penetrated into Assam by riding piggyback on the regional Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and almost swallowed it.

    All India Congress Committee media coordinators Bobbeeta Sharma and Matthew Anthony told journalists in Shillong that the NPP might face a similar fate.

    The NPP is least perturbed. The party said it is No 1 in Meghalaya and efforts are on to further consolidate it.

    “We don’t need to agree or disagree to anything which any other political party may say. We are doing our job. We are the No 1 party and we are working hard to build it further. We are confident,” NPP spokesperson Ampareen Lyngdoh told this newspaper. 

    The BJP had forged an alliance with the AGP in 2016 to avoid the split of anti-Congress votes. The Congress, under the then Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, was going great guns after having formed the government three times in a row. However, the BJP’s alliance with the AGP and the Bodoland People’s Front turned out to be a masterstroke. The three-party combine ousted the Congress from power and formed a coalition government.

    The AGP had dished out a sterling performance, winning 14 seats. The BJP-AGP alliance continued but the latter suffered in the 2021 polls with its tally of MLAs going down to nine. In both elections, the BJP had won an identical 60 seats.

    The BJP has two MLAs in Meghalaya. One of them is a minister. However, the party’s ties with alliance partner NPP are on the rocks after it cornered the latter on the issue of alleged corruption.

    The Congress had emerged as the single largest party in the 2018 elections but the BJP was instrumental in forming the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) and capturing power. Some smaller regional parties are also the components of the ruling coalition.

    Meanwhile, the Congress said Meghalaya urgently needs to be free from corruption and scams which are clogging the system of governance. 

    “There is so much of corruption that even the state BJP president was compelled to comment against its ally NPP. The BJP issued a statement where it slammed the NPP for denying people development projects due to corruption, lack of policies, intent, and incompetence,” the Congress said in a statement.

    The Congress had won 21 seats in the last elections but after a series of defections, it is now left with no MLA. Meghalaya will go to polls on February 27.

    GUWAHATI: The Congress has cautioned the National People’s Party (NPP), which heads the ruling coalition in Meghalaya, to be wary of the BJP or be swallowed by it.

    Citing an example, the Congress said the BJP had penetrated into Assam by riding piggyback on the regional Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and almost swallowed it.

    All India Congress Committee media coordinators Bobbeeta Sharma and Matthew Anthony told journalists in Shillong that the NPP might face a similar fate.

    The NPP is least perturbed. The party said it is No 1 in Meghalaya and efforts are on to further consolidate it.

    “We don’t need to agree or disagree to anything which any other political party may say. We are doing our job. We are the No 1 party and we are working hard to build it further. We are confident,” NPP spokesperson Ampareen Lyngdoh told this newspaper. 

    The BJP had forged an alliance with the AGP in 2016 to avoid the split of anti-Congress votes. The Congress, under the then Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, was going great guns after having formed the government three times in a row. However, the BJP’s alliance with the AGP and the Bodoland People’s Front turned out to be a masterstroke. The three-party combine ousted the Congress from power and formed a coalition government.

    The AGP had dished out a sterling performance, winning 14 seats. The BJP-AGP alliance continued but the latter suffered in the 2021 polls with its tally of MLAs going down to nine. In both elections, the BJP had won an identical 60 seats.

    The BJP has two MLAs in Meghalaya. One of them is a minister. However, the party’s ties with alliance partner NPP are on the rocks after it cornered the latter on the issue of alleged corruption.

    The Congress had emerged as the single largest party in the 2018 elections but the BJP was instrumental in forming the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) and capturing power. Some smaller regional parties are also the components of the ruling coalition.

    Meanwhile, the Congress said Meghalaya urgently needs to be free from corruption and scams which are clogging the system of governance. 

    “There is so much of corruption that even the state BJP president was compelled to comment against its ally NPP. The BJP issued a statement where it slammed the NPP for denying people development projects due to corruption, lack of policies, intent, and incompetence,” the Congress said in a statement.

    The Congress had won 21 seats in the last elections but after a series of defections, it is now left with no MLA. Meghalaya will go to polls on February 27.

  • Assam polls: AGP releases first list of 8 candidates, denies ticket to party veteran Brindaban Goswami

    By PTI
    GUWAHATI: The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), an alliance partner of the ruling BJP-led combine in Assam, on Sunday declared its first list of eight candidates for the approaching assembly polls in the state.

    Announcing the candidates for the first phase of polling on March 27, AGP general secretary Ramendra Narayan Kalita told a press conference that newcomer Prithviraj Rabha would contest from the prestigious Tezpur seat.

    Veteran AGP leader and five-time MLA Brindaban Goswami was denied ticket and replaced by Rabha, who was inducted into the party fold during the day.

    AGP president and state minister Atul Bora will contest from Bokakhat, while his cabinet colleague and working president of the party Keshab Mahanta will be in the fray from Kaliabor constituency.

    ALSO READ | Ex-CM Mahanta’s traditional seat given to BJP considering ‘winning possibility’: AGP

    Names of sitting MLAs Renupoma Rajkhowa (Teok), Bhabendra Nath Bharali (Dergaon) and Prodip Hazarika (Amguri) feature in the list.

    The party has fielded Ponakan Barua from Chabua and Jayanta Khaund from Naoboicha constituency respectively, Kalita told reporters.

    The party currently has 13 MLAs in the 126-member Assam Assembly, which is going to polls in three phases.

    Meanwhile, AIUDF MLA Aziz Ahmed Khan from Karimganj South constituency also joined the AGP on Sunday after news spread that the opposition party has reportedly left the seat to Congress as part of an understanding in the Grand Alliance.

    Polling for Karimganj South assembly constituency will be held in the second phase on April 1.

    The third and the last phase of assembly polls will be held on April 6.

  • Assam polls: BJP trashes reports of dissidence in party after 11 sitting MLAs denied tickets

    By Express News Service
    GUWAHATI: The BJP trashed reports that the denial of tickets to 11 MLAs and other aspirants triggered dissidence in the party.

    “This happens in every election. The candidates are selected keeping in mind the best interest of the party and overall picture,” BJP’s Assam unit chief Ranjit Kumar Dass told journalists on Sunday at a joint press conference with Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL). The three parties are in an alliance.

    The supporters of the 11 BJP MLAs, including a Minister, and the aspirants have already vented their ire in public. Some missing the bus are mulling contesting the polls on the tickets of other parties or as independent candidates.

    Dass claimed that people believe in the BJP and the AGP as the state government succeeded in all spheres in the past five years. The BJP heads the state’s coalition government which also has AGP and Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) as constituents.

    The BJP’s ties with the BPF have since soured and the saffron party has found a new ally in UPPL. The BPF too has joined hands with a Congress-led and seven-party grand alliance of Opposition. BPF and UPPL hold sway in four districts under the Bodoland Territorial Region that has 12 seats.

    Dass was confident the BJP-AGP-UPPL and the Rabha Joutha Mancha, a tribe-based organisation, would be able to grab 100 of the state’s 126 seats, a goal the alliance has set. In the 2016 elections, the BJP-AGP-BPF combine had won 86 seats (BJP-60, AGP-14 and BPF-12).

    AGP president Atul Bora said the coalition would contest the polls as a team where one would support the candidate of the other. Except in five seats where BJP and AGP will have friendly contest, they are fielding consensus candidates in the remaining seats.

    “Our workers will work for BJP and UPPL where AGP is not contesting and vice versa. We want to defeat this unholy alliance of Congress and AIUDF (All India United Democratic Front),” Bora said.

  • Ex-CM Mahanta’s traditional seat given to BJP considering ‘winning possibility’: AGP

    By PTI
    GUWAHATI: The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), a constituent of the ruling BJP-led coalition in Assam, on Sunday said that Barhampur, the traditional seat of former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, was allotted to the saffron party this time considering his “winning possibility” from there.

    Mahanta, an MLA since 1985, won the Barhampur constituency in Nagaon district for six consecutive terms since 1991.

    The seat has now gone to the BJP which selected Jitu Goswami to contest the Assembly polls from there.

    “There is no conspiracy in giving Barhampur to the BJP. We considered the winning prospect of a seat. We have to see whether the NDA is going to win a seat or not,” AGP president Atul Bora said at a press conference here.

    When asked if Mahanta, the founder president of the AGP, is unlikely to win Barhampur this time, Bora said that the “decision was made after a discussion”.

    The AGP chief also refused to say whether Mahanta was taken into confidence before handing over the seat to the BJP.

    Asked if Mahanta’s open opposition to the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act was a reason he did not get the seat he is holding for three decades, Bora said, “That was not a factor. His health was one issue.”

    Following the announcement of the Barhampur seat going to the BJP, Mahanta’s followers staged protests and a process has gained momentum to revive the AGP-Progressive, a defunct breakaway faction of the AGP.

    Sources said that Mahanta has been in discussion with the Congress leadership in Guwahati over joining the opposition’s Grand Alliance led by the party.

    Besides Barhampur, the Lakhimpur seat where Mahanta’s confidante Utpal Dutta is MLA, and the Kamalpur constituency which was held by AGP MLA Satyabrat Kalita, were also allotted to the BJP.

    The saffron party on March 5 released its first list of 70 candidates for the Assam assembly polls.

    The three-phased elections for the 126-member Assam assembly will be held on March 27, April 1 and April 6.

  • Assam Assembly polls: BJP, allies finalise sharing of 86 out of 126 seats

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The BJP and its two alliance partners in Assam — the AGP and UPPL — have finalised their seat-sharing arrangements in 86 Assembly segments where polling will be held mostly in the first and second phase, BJP state unit chief Ranjit Dass said on Thursday night.

    Assam has 126 assembly constituencies where elections will be held in three phases, on March 27, April 1 and April 6.

    “The BJP and its allies have finalised the seat-sharing arrangements. I am not disclosing now the number of seats each party will contest as our alliance partners have to sort out some of their internal issues,” Dass told reporters here after meetings with the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), United People’s Party Liberal as well as the BJP top brass.

    The BJP state unit chief said his party will announce its own candidates for the first two phases soon.

    However, the party has not finalised candidates in 12 seats for the time being and has kept them pending, he said.

    Asked whether Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal will again be projected as the chief ministerial candidate for the coming assembly polls, the BJP state unit president said the party does not make such an announcement where it has its own government.

    “We project a chief ministerial candidate where we don’t have our own government. Where we have our own government, we don’t make such an announcement,” he said.

    Before the 2016 assembly elections, when Congress was in power, Sonowal was projected as the chief ministerial candidate by the BJP.

    The BJP Central Election Committee, comprising top leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also met on Thursday to approve the list of party candidates for Assam.

    In the first of the three phases, 47 constituencies will go for polls.

    In the second phase, polling will be held in 39 constituencies and in the third phase, 40 constituencies.

    The last date for filing of nomination for the first phase is March 9, for the second phase it is March 12 and for the third phase, the last date of submitting nomination papers is March 19.

    In the 2016 Assembly polls, the BJP won 60 seats and the AGP 14.

    The UPPL is a new partner of the BJP and does not have any MLA now.

    The Bodoland People’s Front (BPF), which was part of the BJP-led alliance, had won 12 seats in 2016.

    It is no longer an alliance partner of the BJP and recently joined the opposition Congress-led ‘Mahajoot’.

  • Assam polls: Akhil Gogoi’s party proposes to field united opposition candidate against BJP

    By PTI
    GUWAHATI: Jailed anti-CAA activist Akhil Gogoi has appealed to all the opposition parties to unitedly give only one candidate against every BJP nominee to defeat the incumbent government, newly floated Raijor Dal said on Tuesday.

    Gogoi, president of Raijor Dal even offered not to contest the polls to unite the opposition against the BJP.

    Addressing a press conference here, Raijor Dal Working President Bhasco De Saikia said,”According to Akhil Gogoi, the strategy adopted by the Congress-led Grand Alliance is not sufficient to defeat the BJP.

    “We have to have an understanding on every seat so that there is only one candidate against the BJP.”

    He, however, clarified that Raijor Dal is not going to join the Grand Alliance, but only proposing a broad-based understanding to defeat the BJP-led NDA.

    “We cannot join the grand alliance till the time AIUDF is there in the grouping. We believe that AIUDF is also a communal force and complements the BJP on many issues,” Saikia said.

    Raijor Dal has formed an alliance with another newly formed regional party Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) and the two parties have announced not to join the grand alliance.

    The Congress, which was in power for 15 years in Assam since 2001, has formed a grand alliance with AIUDF, CPI, CPI (M), CPI(ML), BPF and Anchalik Gana Morcha (AGM) to fight the upcoming assembly election against the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

    The BJP will be going to polls with the allies-Asom Gana Parishad (agp) and United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL)- its partner in the Bodoland Territorial Council.

    Of the total 126 seats in Assam Assembly, elections to 47, mostly in Upper Assam, will be held on March 27, while 39, in Barak Valley and Central Assam, will go to polls on April 1 and voting in the remaining 40 seats in Lower Assam will be held in the final round on April 6.

  • 2021 Assam elections: Twin challenges for BJP in the form of Congress allies and regional parties

    Express News Service
    GUWAHATI:  The BJP, which heads Assam’s three-party ruling coalition, is faced with an uphill task to achieve its goal of winning 100 out of the state’s 126 seats in the upcoming Assembly polls. Cashing in on the Modi wave, the saffron party and its allies Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) had bagged 86 seats in the 2016 elections.

    It had also reaped the dividends of antiincumbency and alleged large scale corruption during the previous Congress regime. The scenario this time around, however, is completely different. The primary challenge for the BJP is tie up of Congress and minority-based All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF).

    These two former foes have formed a six-party grand alliance ahead of the polls. The BJP had contested in 84 seats in the 2016 elections, bagging a vote share of 29.5 per cent, less than that of the 31 per cent of the Congress, which had won 26 seats out of the 122 contested seats.

    The combined vote share of BJP-AGP-BPF was 41.9 per cent, which was less than that of the Congress-AIUDF’s vote share of 44 per cent. In 17 constituencies where the BJP had won, the combined vote share of Congress and AIUDF was more than that of the saffron party.

    Also, the combined vote share of Congress and AIUDF was more than that of the AGP in two seats which were among the 14 seats that the regional party had won. The Congress and the AIUDF did not have any alliance in the last election.

    Now that they would fight together and would have a seat-sharing arrangement, the split of anti-BJP votes is likely to be prevented Secondly, the AGP had dished out a spectacular performance in the last election by riding piggyback on the BJP. It had won 14 of the 24 seats it contested.

    However, the birth of two regional forces – Asom Jatiya Parishad (AJP) and Raijor Dal – is expected to cost the AGP dear. That the BJP and the AGP are nervous following the AJP’s emergence in the political spectrum is evident from their constant vitriol of the regional party.

    Political scientist Akhil Ranjan Dutta of the Gauhati University said the Congress- AIUDF alignment will have an impact in Central Assam. “The AJP will target the votes of the AGP and the BJP. I feel they (AJP) will cause damage to both BJP and AGP to some extent. The AASU said it would support the AJP. If they do it, both BJP and AGP will suffer,” Dutta observed.

    He said the BJP was distributing its resources in a targeted manner, particularly targeting the tea community. “They have a substantive presence in tea areas. Not only are they distributing the resources, they are also giving overriding priority in political representation. Pallab Lochan Das, Rameswar Teli and Kamakhya Prasad Tassa, all of them from the tea community, are now MPs,” Dutta said.

    The five Lok Sabha constituencies of Tezpur, Lakhimpur, Dibrugarh, Jorhat and Kaliabor have 48 Assembly segments. The tea workers have a huge influence in 35-37 of them.

  • In Assam’s centre of Vaishnavism, AGP appeals to voters to reject Congress, AIUDF

    Express News Service
    BARPETA: In Assam’s “Satra” heartland Barpeta, the regional Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) on Tuesday appealed to voters to reject the Congress and the minority-based All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) in the upcoming Assembly elections.

    “Barpeta is Assam’s Satra Nagari (township) and it has a history. People from various faiths have always shared a bond of love and friendship here but the Congress and the communal AIUDF are trying to destroy it to gain political mileage. But we will thwart their attempt,” AGP president and minister Atul Bora told people at a “National Unity Conclave” of the party.

    Satras are institutional centres associated with Vaishnavism. The Barpeta Satra was the workplace of 15th-century saint-reformer Srimanta Sankardeva. Muslims account for around 60% of the population in Barpeta district. The eight Assembly seats here are held by Congress (three), AIUDF (two), AGP (two) and BJP (one).

    The AGP was born out of the six-year-long bloody Assam Agitation (anti-immigrants’ agitation) that ended with the signing of the historic Assam Accord in 1985. Barpeta was one of the focussed districts during the updation of National Register of Citizens or NRC. During an NRC pilot project in 2010, protests broke out in Barpeta town and four people were killed in police firing.

    Bora squarely blamed the Congress for years of “underdevelopment” in the state.

    “The Congress had ruled Assam for the most part. If they had worked sincerely and not divided people into the lines of religion and language, it could have built a progressive Assam. It is for the Congress that we are lagging behind many states in all sectors,” the AGP president said.

    He predicted that the Congress-AIUDF combine would draw a blank in the polls. He said this was evident from the Bodoland Territorial Council elections held in December last year. The two parties had fought together but won just one of the 40 seats.

    “They will meet a similar fate in the state elections. They will lose the polls fighting over seat-sharing arrangement between them,” Bora said against the backdrop of an attempt being made by the two parties to form a grand alliance of Opposition.

    “We appeal to you to try to understand the ground realities. The AGP will provide security to those identified as Indians by the Constitution of India and who consider themselves as Assamese,” Bora said with his message directed at Bengali-speaking Muslims and Hindus.

    He said the AGP had learnt from mistakes as it was trying to strengthen itself.

    “We were in power for two terms but from 2001 to 2016, we had lost the trust of people. We analysed our mistakes and with new thoughts and a new vision, we are trying to take the party forward,” Bora said.

    He said it was heart-warming that a lot of youth, including students, joined the party in recent times.

    “The AGP is a secular party and it wants to march ahead with people from all faiths. The AGP believes in internal democracy. Every individual in it gets equal respect. Support us,” Bora said in his appeal to the people.

    He said the AGP had aligned with the BJP in the greater interests of the state. However, Congress, AIUDF and some forces, which do not want to see the rise of AGP, often try to demean it for the alliance, he added.