“I take this opportunity to thank every Congress worker and leader and our allies for their effort during these elections”.
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It now controls 86 seats out of 126 in the Assam Assembly, putting an end to 15 years of rule by the Indian National Congress (commonly known as Congress), the country’s oldest political party.
BJP chief ministerial candidate Sarbananda Sonowal along with senior BJP leaders Ram Madhav (R) and Himanta Biswa Sarma, addressing the media after the party’s thumping win in the Assam assembly polls. These have benefitted the poor, farmers, workers, women, youth & the deprived.
Observing that BJP is “unquestionably the largest party” in Bihar, he said, “in our eastward movement, we will now form a government with a comfortable majority in Assam”.
“Heartiest congratulations to Assam BJP and leaders for the exceptional win”.
Bettering its performance over the 2011 elections, AITC, which had then contested in alliance with Congress and won 184 seats in the 294-member Assembly, has now won 98 seats and leading in 113 (total 211).
Congress won just 22 of the state assembly’s 140 seats, with the coalition it led winning 47 altogether. The rise in vote share in Tamil Nadu is insignificant, from 2% in 2006 to 2.8% in 2016. This is a historic achievement. The Gandhi dynasty’s political organization also dropped the southern state of Kerala and was only ahead in Puducherry, a former French colony that has a quarter-million people – some 40 times less than Delhi, the capital. The critical factor in Kerala this year was the movement of marginalised communities, tea estate workers and many minorities who showed their support for the parties on the left, due to the failure of Congress policies over the past five years.
The results of the elections in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry was “nothing shocking or surprising”, the Sena said in an editorial in its mouthpiece “Saamana”. This has brought the Congress down electorally to an historically all time low while the position of BJP is at an all time high. It will also come pretty handy when the BJP lines up for the next round of assembly elections-in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh-that are due next year. The party took out a candlelight march denouncing the BJP for not fulfilling its election promises. “Across India, people are placing their faith in BJP & see it as the party that can usher in all-round & inclusive development”, Modi tweeted after the numbers trickled in around noon on May 19. The Guwahati show is tipped to be similar to the one that the party held when B S Yeddyurappa was sworn in as Karnataka’s first BJP CM in 2007.
PTI State BJP hails: BJP Manipur Pradesh has expressed huge satisfaction at the landslide victory scored by the party over ruling Congress party in neighbouring Assam.
In fact, the elections demonstrated the continuing influence of these parties and the sway that charismatic local leaders command in several key states.
“People want good governance and good politics, while the Congress was not willing to eschew its feudal mindset”, the Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs told PTI.
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The Congress losses in Assam and Kerala will weaken its ability to block Mr. Modi’s legislative agenda, Reuters says.
