Assam: AGP back in NDA after midnight deal with BJP

GUWAHATI: Just two months after it walked out of NDA over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, Asom Gana Parishad was back in the alliance after it struck a deal with BJP during a meeting with Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal and others that went on well past Tuesday midnight.


As per the deal, AGP will be given at least three of the 14

Lok Sabha

seats and one of the two Rajya Sabha slots for which polls are due in June, top sources said. Besides, BJP has assured AGP of modifications to the Citizenship Bill when it is reintroduced in Parliament.

The three AGP ministers, including party president Atul Bora, were back in the cabinet on Wednesday hours after the midnight talks, which were also attended by BJP general secretary Ram Madhav and Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. That BJP's leadership had been working on AGP leaders was evident from the fact that the resignations of the three AGP ministers were never forwarded to the governor by Sonowal.

However, there are differences within AGP over its return to the ruling alliance as the party's founder-president

Prafulla Kumar Mahanta

was not invited for the talks with BJP. Mahanta said he had been kept out of the loop entirely, perhaps because he had not been in favour of the coalition.

"I have not been officially informed by my party about realigning with BJP. Going back to BJP is wrong. The grassroots workers of our party never wanted that. The AGP leadership should have convened a general body meeting before making such a big decision," Mahanta said. In 2001, Mahanta was instrumental in putting together AGP's alliance with BJP for the first time. Before the 2016 Assam assembly election, when BJP and AGP came together again, Mahanta was invited to the meeting that sealed the deal at BJP president Amit Shah's residence in New Delhi.

AGP had severed ties with BJP two months ago as it felt that the Citizenship Bill was a threat to protection of Assamese identity, which is the party's core agenda.

However, on Wednesday, Himanta assured that the Bill will be introduced in the Lok Sabha again in the next two to three months. "In the meantime, we will iron out any differences through consultation and consensus. Our priority is protecting the interests of Assam ... (We can see) if any inclusions can be made to the new Bill to allay any insecurity in the minds of the people of Assam," Sarma said.

Under fire from supporters for going back on the decision to take a "principled stand", Bora said, "Our single objective is to have our presence in Lok Sabha. For that, we need to contest to win elections. Our stand to oppose the Citizenship Bill has not changed but we have decided to resolve the issue through consensus and consultations with BJP."

Sarma said the details of the seat-sharing arrangement, which has been finalized, would be announced soon. "BJP will announce its list of candidates on March 16 and likewise AGP will announce its list separately."

Meanwhile, Prabajan Virodhi Manch (PVM) convener Upamanyu Hazarika described the alliance between AGP and BJP as 'politics of convenience.'

"It is the politics of self-preservation of leaders who are in public life far beyond their expiry date. AGP was reduced to a 3.8% vote share in the 2014 LS polls. It got a fresh lease of life after striking an alliance with BJP in 2016. They've again proven why the people of Assam had rightly rejected them earlier," Hazarika, who is a Supreme Court lawyer, said.