No party has managed to win the 21 seats required to govern BTC independently.
Guwahati:
The Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) election, the results of which were released on Saturday, yielded a fractured mandate with no party being able to muster the winning figure. Considered the “semi-final” before next year’s Assam legislative elections, however, it saw the BJP making big strides with nine seats won this time compared to one in 2015.
The BTC has 46 members, of which 40 are elected and six nominated. Elections for the body were held on December 7 and 10. This was the first election since the Bodo Peace Agreement was signed earlier this year.
The Bodoland Popular Front (BPF), which has ruled BTC for close to 17 years, failed to secure 21 seats, the minimum required to govern the council independently. It won 17, three less than it had in 2015. The team, led by militant-turned-politician Hagrama Mohilary, still emerged as the largest party.
Interestingly, the BPF had been in alliance with the BJP during the last elections. This time, the BJP not only went solo, but even took on a key ally, BPF. Earlier, the Assam BJP had hinted that it would not like to continue its alliance with the BPF for the 2021 Assam elections, just six months away.
The stellar performance of the BJP has followed an aggressive campaign by the national party, with Himanta Biswa Sarma, the man the BJP turns to for Assam and the Northeast region, leading mass demonstrations in the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) in the run-up period. to choice.
Senior BJP state officials participated in the deliberations until Saturday night and a decision on the formation of the Council is likely to be announced later today, PTI reported. Sarma told reporters that a decision will be announced after discussions with Assam’s chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal.
Meanwhile, the opposition alliance of Congress and the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) led by Badruddin Ajmal performed poorly this time. While the former managed to scrape a seat, the home team simply couldn’t take off.
Finally, the United People’s Liberal Party (UPPL), a hard-line party, has emerged as the potential kingmaker in these 12-seat elections. It is led by student leader-turned-politician Pramod Boro, a key signatory to the Bodo Peace Agreement.
Assam’s 2021 assembly elections are just six months away, and the BJP is seeking to win at least 100 of the 126 seats in the state. The election of BTR’s 21,000-odd multi-ethnic voters was being seen as a test case ahead of next year’s main event.
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