GUWAHATI: As the electioneering for the first phase Lok Sabha election in Assam slated for April 11, is getting intensified day by day, the regional Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) is being exposed in a very poor light as a sharply divided house.
A large section of senior Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) leaders are abstaining from electioneering either for the party candidate at Kaliabor Lok Sabha Constituency or for candidates of its ally BJP in other first-phase parliamentary constituencies of Tezpur, Jorhat, Dibrugarh and Lakhimpur.
Senior AGP leader and former chief minister, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta is not campaigning for the candidates of the BJP-led alliance that has AGP as the key constituent. Mahanta has opposed the AGP leadership’s decision to renew ties with the ruling BJP to fight the Lok Sabha polls jointly even though the regional party had severed ties with the BJP in January this year protesting the BJP’s stand in favour of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016.
A senior AGP leader and a former minister of Assam, Jatin Mali on Thursday joined the Congress in protest against unilateral decision of the AGP leadership to renew ties with the BJP.
Though the AGP was compelled by the intensive mass agitation against the Bill to snap ties with the BJP after the Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha, leadership of the party renewed the ties before Lok Sabha election without consulting party workers.
This has now created massive resentment among AGP workers across the states who are not willing to canvass for candidates of the ally BJP.
As per the seat sharing arrangement among the BJP, AGP and Bodoland People’s Front (BPF), the AGP is contesting from Kaliabor, Dhubri and Barpeta Lok Sabha constituencies while BPF is contesting from Kokrajhar. The BJP is fielding candidates in the rest ten Lok Sabha constituencies in the state –Tezpur, Jorhat, Dibrugarh, Lakhimpur, Nagaon, Guwahati, Mangaldai, Silchar, Karimganj and Diphu (Autonomous District).
The only prominent AGP leaders who have hit the campaign trail so far are party president Atul Bora and working president Keshab Mahanta. Both Bora and Mahanta are ministers in Sarbananda Sonowal ministry in Assam while Keshab Mahanta’s brother Moni Madhab Mahanta is the AGP candidate in Kaliabor Lok Sabha constituency. He is, in fact, the common candidate of the BJP-led ruling alliance and pitted against formidable Congress candidate and two-time MP, Gaurav Gogoi.
There is hardly any chance of the AGP candidates sailing through in Muslims minority dominated Barpeta and Dhubri constituencies which are now in the grip of All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) led by Badaruddin Ajmal. This is another reason for disgruntlement in a section of AGP workers who have viewed the seat sharing with the BJP a loop-sided arrangement favouring the saffron party and at the cost of future of the regional party.
