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Nitin Gogoi in Guwahati
The BJP high command is likely to overrule the party's Assam unit over the question of an alliance with the ruling Asom Gana Parishad for the forthcoming assembly polls slated to be held in late April.
The reasoning given by the top leaders -- Prime Minister A B Vajpayee and Home Minister Advani -- is that the Congress must be kept out of power by any means, even if it means subjugating the party to a regional outfit like the AGP, highly placed BJP sources said in Guwahati.
The state leaders, who feel that the AGP is not very popular with the people after its second stint in power from 1996 to now, want to fight the polls alone.
A worried state leadership under its president Rajen Gohain has in fact rushed to New Delhi to plead with the central leadership not to enter into an alliance with the AGP.
A section of the state leadership, however, favour a 'tactical' understanding short of a pre-poll alliance with the AGP in order to keep the Congress out of power in Assam. Over the past 15 years, the electorate in Assam has alternated between voting the AGP and the Congress to power. By that count, the Congress, ousted from power in 1996, is hoping to come back to power, riding on the ever-present anti-incumbency factor.
Several new factors have, however, come into play since the last elections. The biggest of them is the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party as a force to reckon with. The figures are revealing. In the 1996 Parliamentary elections held simultaneously with the assembly polls, the BJP had secured about 16 per cent of the total votes polled. In the two subsequent polls to the Lok Sabha held in 1998 and 1999, the BJP's vote share jumped to 25 and 33 per cent respectively.
More significantly, the BJP candidates led the ruling AGP in 83 assembly segments during these two elections, but winning only two seats. The Congress of course garnered the maximum votes in the past two parliamentary polls, securing nine out of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state. AGP drew a blank.
But even BJP insiders admit there is a vast difference between the voting pattern for assembly and Lok Sabha elections.
Traditionally, the Congress has banked upon the Muslims and the tea garden voters to come to power. Admits Tarun Gogoi, the PCC chief: "Whenever these two sections have voted together for us, we have gained. But this time even the Assamese are coming out in large numbers to support us." The only problem the Congress foresees is a possible electoral tie-up between the AGP and the BJP. A direct fight between Congress and the AGP-BJP combine may prove to be closer than most people think.
But the electoral understanding between the BJP and AGP is easier envisaged than implemented on ground.
Powerful sections in both parties are against any such tie-up. The AGP in fact adopted an official resolution in its recent convention terming the BJP 'communal'. BJP president Bangaru Laxman, on his part, was also scathing in his criticism of the AGP during his last visit to Assam. And yet, Advani has admitted that the question of a tie-up with the AGP is still open.
EARLIER REPORT:
BJP rules out alliance with AGP
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