From Our Correspondent
Guwahati: As Assam unit of the BJP is enthusiastically looking for the proposed visit of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi to the State sometimes in October, his Assam counterpart and Congress veteran Tarun Gogoi on Monday tried to down play it saying “Modi magic won’t work here in Assam.”
“We have our local Mayong magic to cast off spells of ‘Modi magic’, a vocal Modi-baiter, the three-time Assam chief minister said referring in a jocular vein to the ancient cradle of black magic hub (as per the mythology) of Mayong, in central Assam’s Morigaon district.
Gogoi, in fact, likened welfare schemes of his government and peace initiatives with different militant groups to the magic of Mayong to counter the much hyped ‘Modi magic’ of the BJP.
Gogoi said ‘Modi-magic’ would not be able to sway voters in Assam in favour of the BJP as had already been proven in earlier elections when Modi had campaigned for the party in this state, without translating into significant electoral success.
“At that time, the BJP was a united house and still, they failed. Now they are a divided house over Modi’s new role. They will be able to cause no harm to Congress” the Assam chief minister said. He termed Modi a representative of big industrialists but not common people who has no place or following in Assam.
Gogoi predicted that the Congress would win more seats in the state in the next Lok Sabha elections and vowed to snatch the prestigious Guwahati Lok Sabha seat from the incumbent BJP MP, Bijoya Chakraborty.
Gogoi lambasted ‘BJP’s strategy’ of dividing people on religious line to win votes.
“The BJP is trying to win votes by dividing people along religious lines. Their government (BJP-led NDA) had deprived Assam when it was in power. The NDA government did not sanction any major project for Assam,” Gogoi alleged.