Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on February 29 announced that the BJP and its allies Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and the United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL) had reached the seat-sharing deal for Assam for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
CM Sarma announced that the BJP would contest on 11 out of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state, the AGP would contest in Barpeta and Dhubri seats, while the UPPL is set to field its candidate from the Kokrajhar seat.
“BJP and its ally parties will fight jointly. AGP and UPPL are the ally parties of BJP. Yesterday, state BJP president Bhabesh Kalita and I attended a meeting with BJP national president JP Nadda, union home minister Amit Shah and BJP leader BL Santosh. BJP has decided to give Kokrajhar seat to UPPL. Our party’s central leadership had requested us to discuss with the AGP leadership to contest in 2 seats,” said Himanta Biswa Sarma while addressing the media.
“After discussion, AGP has agreed to contest in two seats. AGP will contest in the Barpeta and Dhubri seats. BJP will contest in 11 seats. Today, the parliamentary board will finalize the candidate list. Our alliance with AGP will continue. There will be new faces. Some existing MPs express desire not to contest the election this time,” he added.
CM Himanta Biswa Sarma further exuded confidence that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would secure victory on all 11 seats in the polls.
“I am optimistic that the NDA will win 11 seats this time. But there will be a good fight in the other three seats as well”, he said.
“Rana Goswami who was the working president of Assam Congress today joined BJP. Another working president of Assam Congress Kamakhya Dey Purkayastha also extends his support to the state government. I am sure many more Congressmen will come to BJP in the coming days,” added the CM.
Taking a dig at the Congress, he added, “The Congress will be segregated. May Congress remain as a name. NDA is heading to win 400 seats.”
The decision on seat sharing follows a core group meeting of different state leaders as part of the candidate selection process for the Lok Sabha polls, with party chief JP Nadda and union home minister Amit Shah discussing with leaders the panel of names recommended by the respective state units, earlier a day.
Sources said core committee meeting was held for several states including Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Assam besides the union territory of Delhi, ahead of the meeting of the party’s Central Election Committee today.
They also said the party will likely announce over 100 names in its first candidate list.
The Lok Sabha polls are scheduled to be held in April-May this year.
