Assam enters poll year amid speculation over AGP-BJP tie-up

GUWAHATI, January 3: With a year of large-scale massacre of the Hindi-speaking populace in the state just over, Assam has formally entered an election year with speculation that the ruling Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) will eventually go in for an electoral alliance with the BJP. Elections to the state Assembly are due in April this year. The media has been rife with reports that the AGP and BJP would ultimately go in for a tie-up, though it remains a fact that both parties have been openly and repeatedly denying the possibility. But if BJP national president Bangaru Laxman is to be believed, it is too early to say anything on the issue. "Moreover, there is no such proposal before the party for an alliance with the AGP," Laxman said during a visit to Guwahati last week. AGP president and state Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta too has denied any such development. "We have no such proposal. Our four-party alliance is still in existence and we have been working with a common agenda for the past five years," Mahanta said. The speculation about a possible AGP-BJP alliance has its roots in the recent no-confidence motion tabled by the Congress party in Parliament, when the two AGP members in the Rajya Sabha voted in favour of the NDA. Clarifying her party's stand, AGP's Rajya Sabha member Joyashree Goswami Mahanta said that they had voted in favour of the Government because "the AGP is opposed to the Congress." That Joyashree is also the Assam Chief Minister's wife, has only added to the rumours. Meanwhile, the Congress party has expressed fears that the AGP and the BJP had already entered into a "secret understanding", with Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president and Lok Sabha member Tarun Gogoi adding that state Governor SK Sinha was acting as the go-between. "We have no doubt that the AGP and the BJP have entered into an understanding with a hidden agenda to keep the Congress at bay," Gogoi said. The AGP and the BJP have been "natural allies" since the days of the Assam agitation of 1979-85, the Congress leader added. Gogoi also said that he considered Union Home Minister L.K. Advani as more instrumental than BJP chief Bangaru Laxman in going ahead with the AGP-BJP alliance. The alliance was facilitated by Governor Sinha rather than Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, the Congress leader added. According to Gogoi, the AGP chief Mahanta had "mastered the art of chicanery" and had already captured power twice by cleverly designed half-truths and misleading talk. The state BJP leadership, however, has ruled out any possibility of getting together with the AGP. State party president Rajen Gohain has described the AGP as a "sinking ship". Guwahati MP and Union Minister of State for Water Resources Bijoya Chakravarty echoed this sentiment. The Congress, meanwhile, is looking forward for an alliance with the two Left parties, the CPI and CPI(M), with Gogoi hoping that the two will quit the AGP-led alliance as a fall-out of its MPs voting in favour of Vajpayee in Rajya Sabha. "We do not rule out an alliance with the Left parties," Gogoi said.