E-Paper
Himanta Biswa Sarma to take break from Jharkhand poll, campaign on 5 Assam seats
Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is the BJP’s co-in-charge for the elections to the 81-seat assembly in Ranchi, has been camping in Jharkhand for the past several days
GUWAHATI: The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) campaigning for elections to five Assam assembly seats is in full swing despite chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s prolonged absence from the state to focus on the Jharkhand assembly elections, the state unit president Bhabesh Kalita said on Monday.
“Despite the chief minister being busy with the assembly polls in Jharkhand and Maharashtra, our campaigning for the five seats in Assam is in full swing. We have assigned senior ministers, 2 MLAs and senior party leaders for each seat to ensure connect with voters,” Kalita said.
Sarma, who is the BJP’s co-in-charge for the elections to the 81-seat assembly in Ranchi, has been camping in Jharkhand to lead the party’s offensive against the coalition led by Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s (JMM) Hemant Soren.
Sarma told a news conference in Guwahati that Jharkhand was going to be “a tough state” to crack. “I am not sure whether I will be campaigning here this time. If I can manage time, perhaps I will campaign at one or two places,” Sarma said on October 27, according to news agency PTI.
On Monday, Kalita said the chief minister would spend three days in Assam beginning Tuesday to campaign for the bypolls on five seats to mobilise support for the BJP and its alliance partners.
Bypolls are being held on November 13 to five Assam assembly constituencies -- Behali, Bongaigaon, Dhalai, Sidli and Samaguri -- which fell vacant following the election of the sitting MLAs to the Lok Sabha earlier this year. The bypoll results will be declared on November 23.
The BJP won two of these seats in the 2021 assembly polls while its partners, Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and the United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL), won one seat each. The fifth seat, Samaguri, was with the Congress.
Kalita said the BJP and its allies were very confident of retaining the four seats, Behali, Bongaigaon, Dholai and Sidli. “There will be a tough fight for the Samaguri seat due to the population dynamics. But we are hopeful of even winning that seat,” said Kalita.
The Congress, which broke up its alliance with 15 other opposition parties over the seat distribution and decided to contest all five seats, said Sarma’s decision to campaign for the five candidates indicates that the BJP was unsure of its ability to retain the seats.
“The CM was overconfident that BJP and its allies would win the by-elections even without his presence. But now that he has realised that the Congress is set to win most of the seats, Sarma has decided to return to Assam and join the campaign,” Assam Congress president Bhupen Kumar Borah said.
Borah also rejected speculation about a rift within the Congress’s Assam unit.
Borah had advocated leaving the Behali seat to the CPI(ML), a partner in the opposition alliance. But the Congress leadership rejected the suggestion, reportedly on Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi’s advice, leading to the breakup in the 16-party opposition front.
“We are fighting the by-elections unitedly and there’s no difference within the Congress in Assam. I am the president of the party’s state unit while Gogoi is the Congress’s deputy leader in Lok Sabha. Our goal is to ensure the victory of all our candidates,” said Borah.
