As BPF snaps ties with BJP, things get tougher for ruling party in Assam

Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 2 

With the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) snapping ties with the BJP and formally joining the Congress-led ‘Grand Alliance’—which also has Left and other parties—the fight seems to be getting tougher for the ruling BJP in the run-up to the Assam elections.

Saffron leaders, however, have dismissed the development, instead slamming the Congress for its alliances with Muslim parties in West Bengal, Kerala, and Assam. They said the Congress stood exposed over its “lack of ideology”.

An ally of the BJP in the outgoing state government, the BPF recently announced its decision to opt-out of the NDA. BPF chief Hagrama Mohilary said, “to work for peace, unity and development the BPF has decided to join hands with ‘Mahajath’ in the forthcoming Assam Assembly Election. We shall no longer maintain friendship or alliance with BJP.”

The decision was seen as a big boost for the Congress, primarily because of the BPF’s potential in swaying sentiments in the Bodoland Territorial Region. In the 2016 Assam polls, it had won 12 of the 13 seats it contested. The outgoing government includes 60 members of the BJP, 12 of the BPF and 14 of the AGP (Asom Gana Parishad) with which the BJP is continuing its alliance.

So far as Badruddin Ajmal is concerned, the perfume baron enjoys a large support base in Bengali-origin Muslims that may pose a problem for saffron candidates in community-dominated regions adjoining West Bengal and Bangladesh. The BJP has been facing opposition in the state over the CAA, which has given rise to regional parties like Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) and the Raijor Dal who have also formed a pre-poll alliance, giving the upcoming polls a third front.

BJP leaders say the “situation is well under control” and that the problems had been brewing with the BPF for long. The tensions became public after the BPF rejected the third Bodo Accord in January 2020 and followed it by contesting the BTC elections separately.

“We knew of the pact between the BPF and the Congress-AIUDF etc and are well prepared to deal with it,” they said adding that “BPF joining the Mahajath is hardly an issue”.