AGP seeks time to respond; BJP serves ultimatum on seat-sharing

NEW DELHI, April 8: In a new twist to the ongoing political stalemate, the BJP State unit today served an ultimatum on the AGP to concede to their demand for 50 seats. The BJP has asked the regional party to respond by Monday, a senior leader of the party told The Assam Tribune. The decision to serve an ultimatum on the AGP was taken at a meeting held at Union Minister of State for Water Resources Bijoya Chakraborty's house last evening. The BJP's State executive members including the State president, Rajen Gohain, member of the national executive, Kabindra Purkayastha besides the general secretary in charge for Northeast, Sunil Shastri attended the meeting. Sources said after considering all the aspects the State unit came to the decision to serve an ultimatum on the AGP demanding 50 seats. "If the AGP does not respond the alliance would be off," the leader said. The general secretary in charge for Northeast, Sunil Shastri was later today despatched to meet the AGP leadership with a list of constituencies the national party wanted. Shastri met AGP spokesman, Biren Baishya, State Municipal Administration Minister, Biraj Sarma and apprised them about the position and handed over the list. The AGP leadership sought some time to respond to the demands after discussions with the party president and Chief Minister, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta. Significantly, the Chief Minister who confirmed his visit to Delhi early in the morning upon learning about the ultimatum postponed his visit. Sources said the BJP has resolved to stick to its stand and members were in no mood to relent any further. Meanwhile, BJP sources said deadlock was over the Assembly seats that constituted four parliamentary constituencies of Guwahati, Nagaon, Mangaldoi and Tezpur. BJP leaders, it has been learnt, argued that these seats were among the four parliamentary constituencies where they have performed extremely well during the last parliamentary election in 1999. While the BJP won the Nagaon and Guwahati seats, it lost both Mangaldoi and Tezpur constituencies with narrow margin. The party has contended that the Assembly seats under these four parliamentary seats were extremely crucial for the BJP performance in the Assembly election and hence should be conceded. "We won the Guwahati and Nagaon parliamentary seats and if can't field candidates in Nagaon and Guwahati, then it would be a major disappointment for our workers and our supporters," a State executive member said. From the AGP's, point of view, however, giving away the Assembly seats under the four parliamentary seats would mean sacrificing a majority of their seats held by sitting MLAs, including the prestigious Guwahati (East and West) seats. A senior AGP leader said how could AGP give away these seats considered the bastion of the regional party. "The Guwahati (East) Assembly segment is extremely prestigious for us because it is also the seat, where our head office is located and how can we possibly give it away," argued a senior leader. It may be mentioned here that the two parties had all but resolved the seat-sharing arrangement in upper Assam and Barak valley before they hit rough weather. The BJP has been demanding 18 additional seats, out of which, two seats were reluctantly conceded by the regional party. Meanwhile, the crucial meeting between the AGP and the BJP scheduled to be held last night failed to take off. The leadership of the two parties instead held meeting among themselves exploring the possibility of breaking the deadlock. The BJP leaders were extremely peeved with the AGP for conceding only 32 seats as against their demand for 55 seats. The BJP leader shaken by the wide-scale resentment among their partymen in Assam decided to reiterate their demand for at least 50 scaling their demand by only five seats. Reacting to the development, the BJP State unit president, Rajen Gohain said it has become untenable for them to agree on an alliance with the AGP on such terms. He said they are waiting for the AGP to respond. "The ball is in their court," he asserted.