Out of the 126 seats in the state Assembly, the AGP is likely to contest 25 to 28.
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The BJP and AGP will jointly fight the upcoming Assam Assembly polls, dates for which are still to be announced, though the term of the assembly ends on 5th June.
Minutes after the announcement in Delhi, BJP supporters in Assam took to the streets in different areas of the state, opposing the alliance.
“BJP-AGP has similarity on one issue in Assam – illegal infiltration from Bangladesh”, said BJP leader and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad while addressing the press.
On seat sharing agreement with the BJP, Bora said: “Discussions are on to finalise the details about the seat sharing”. The reason the BJP wanted the AGP on board was to avoid the split in anti-Congress votes. BJP has its own thinking on the issue, and AGP was born out of the movement against the illegal infiltrators.
“The alliance will dethrone the corrupt and non- performing Tarun Gogoi-led Congress government in Assam”, he said.
Several other senior BJP leaders were also with AGP earlier.
He added, “The act was repealed later by the Supreme Court but the Congress did nothing when it was in power”. Past alliances with the BJP did not work because those who would have otherwise voted for the BJP did not vote for its ally, the AGP, choosing to vote for others in the fray instead. Emerging from the meeting, the leaders of both the parties asserted that the alliance was struck to keep the Congress at bay but they refrained from revealing the seat-sharing arrangement.
“They have underestimated our worth and what we can do”, they said.
Explaining why they had allied with the AGP in particular, Prasad said they were “similar” on the issue of infiltration and its ramifications for Assam’s demographic changes. What is the harm? He was in the AASU and then in the AGP and we all worked together.
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They alleged the party leadership went ahead with the alliance to serve their narrow political interest despite the party leaders and workers at the grass-root and constituency level strongly opposing their respective parties’ joining hands with each other. But when Rahul Gandhi came, he shifted the goal post. “With that the Congress’s ideological position changed”. I am in the same point where I was, he claimed.
