Silchar: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept the 13th North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council (NCHAC) elections, bagging 25 out of 28 seats.
Three seats went to independent candidates, of those, two are rebel BJP candidates. The NCHAC has 30 members, of whom 28 are elected and two are nominated.
The Congress, which won two seats in the tribal council elections in 2019, lost both candidates this time. Trinamool Congress (TMC), Aam Admi Party (AAP) and BJP’s ally in the Assam assembly, Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) candidates, also failed to win in the autonomous council election this year.
Candidates fielded by the BJP won the council’s six of the 28 seats unopposed before the election. Voting on the remaining 22 seats took place on January 8.
Though the election went peacefully, the TCM alleged that the BJP stopped the voters from exercising their rights.
The BJP projected Debolal Garlosa as the presumptive chief executive member (CEM) of the autonomous council. The BJP had also fielded some surrendered insurgents. During the campaign, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma took credit for bringing the insurgents to the mainstream and promised that the surrendered insurgents would get skill development training so that they could get jobs.
Garlosa on Friday told HT that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s schemes helped the people of their council to develop their lives and that was the biggest inspiration for the BJP in their campaigns.
{{/usCountry}}Garlosa on Friday told HT that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s schemes helped the people of their council to develop their lives and that was the biggest inspiration for the BJP in their campaigns.
{{/usCountry}}“Apart from Modi Ji’s development schemes, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma was one of the biggest reasons behind our victory. He guided us in all the situations and under his leadership, all the important schemes are being implemented,” he said.
TMC leader Sushmita Dev during the election said that they were expecting to become the main opposition at NC Hills Autonomous Council but her party failed to win any seat. On Friday she said that they are happy with the votes they received and this is a new beginning.
“We are looking at this positively. We have received a good number of votes and we’ll continue to fight for the people of the NC Hills Autonomous Council in the years to come,” she said.
After the victory, BJP’s Assam unit wrote on X, “On behalf of BJP Assam Pradesh, many thanks to all the people of Dima Hasao for giving a spectacular victory to Bharatiya Janata Party in the Hills Autonomous Council elections.”
Polling for the 13th NCHAC was held on January 8 and a voter turnout of 85.78% was recorded. The voting was completed peacefully across 231 polling stations in 22 constituencies across the Dima Hasao district.