AGP decides against forging alliance with BJP

Guwahati: Putting speculations to rest, the general council of the regional Asom Gana Parishad (AGP)  has decided to fight the coming Assembly election in Assam on its own rejecting the option of forging a pre-poll alliance with the BJP.
The special general council meeting of the regional party which has ruled Assam on two occasions in the past, directed the party leadership to prepare to fight the next Assembly election on its own strength.
The general council further entrusted the steering committee, the highest policy-making body of the party to formulate election strategy taking general council into consideration, the party general secretary Ramendra Narayan Kalita informed.
Though the AGP and BJP had explored possibility of a pre-poll alliance, it did not materialise basically because of the BJP’s firm stand of not to leave more than 20 seats for the AGP to filed its candidates out of the total 126 Assembly constituencies. The AGP leadership had wanted about 55 seats.
With the BJP and the AGP which basically share the same vote base in Brahmaputra Valley areas in Assam, contesting polls separately it would be an advantage for the Congress as anti-Congress votes are likely to get divided. It has been happening in all the past Assembly elections since 2001 and Congress has been the winner all along.Though the AGP and the BJP had forged alliance in 2001 Assembly polls, it could not stopped the
Congress from registering a thumping win basically because of the strong anti-incumbency against the then AGP government led by Prafulla Kumar Mahanta.
In the last Lok Sabha election in 2014, BJP won seven out of 14 seats in Assam which is the party’s best performance in parliamentary polls in Assam. On the other hand the AGP which fielded 12 candidates in the Lok Sabha polls, drew blank.
According to political observers here, the BJP ate into the AGP’s vote base during the Lok Sabha polls riding the prevalent Modi wave as a result anti-Congress votes were cast mainly for the BJP.