Guwahati: President of regional Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) has ruled out possibility of pre-poll alliance with any of the national political parties including the ruling Congress and the BJP notwithstanding a few senior leaders of the AGP separately meeting leaders of Congress and the BJP during the last couple of days triggering speculations poll tie-up involving the regional party.
It is a fact that both the ruling Congress and the BJP are trying to woo the regional Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) for a pre-poll alliance for the next Assembly election in Assam.
The president of the regional party Atul Bora on Wednesday, however, announced that the party was not interested in pre-poll alliance with either Congress or the BJP.
He told media here that though there were talks involving a section of leaders from the AGP with both the BJP and the AGP, the regional party remained firm on its decision to fight the election either on its own or with poll understanding with other like-minded and secular state-based political groups.
When drawn to the development that two groups of senior AGP leaders separately meeting Congress and BJP leaders in the last couple of days, the AGP president said, “The party’s policy making body has not taken any decision to forge poll alliance with either BJP or the Congress.”
“I in the capacity of the president of the AGP would like to clarify that the AGP will keep equal distance from both the Congress and the BJP.”
“There is hardly any difference between the Congress and the BJP. The Prime Minister of the BJP-led NDA government, Narendra Modi had promised many things to the people of Assam before the last Lok Sabha election, but none of those has been kept during the last 18 months of BJP rule in the Centre,” the AGP president said.
He said the AGP will contest at least 84 seats out of the 126 Assembly seats in the state in the next election.
He said the party which ruled the state for two terms in the past, will contest in all the seats where it has been fielding candidates since 1985.
Meanwhile, AGP’s senior leader and former two-time chief minister of Assam ,Prafulla Kumar Mahanta has commented that the it would be prudent for the AGP to try regaining its foothold among the masses on its own.
Mahanta has criticised the BJP-led NDA government for making ‘U-turn” on pre-election promises made by the BJP party in respect burning issues of the state like land swapping with Bangladesh, detection and deportation of illegal Bangladeshi migrants from Assam, big river dams etc.
The BJP has evinced interest to have a poll-truck with the AGP to prevent division of anti-Congress
votes in the polls while the Congress as a strategy is trying to woo its traditional rival in Assam, AGP to ensure that the regional party remain in the fray against the BJP as both AGP and the BJP eye almost the same vote base in the state.
The AGP which is passing through a lean phase, recently lost many of its senior and high-profile leaders including Hitendra Nath Goswami, Chandra Mohan Patowary, Padma Hazarika, Hemanta Kalita etc., to the BJP.
The regional party now has eight MLAs in the 126-member state Assembly.
