In the circumstances, the State Assembly polls in 2016 assume great importance to the BJP. Five States will go for the polls in May and June: Assam, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala and the tiny Puducherry. Barring Assam, the BJP’s prospects do not seem bright. Jayalalithaa is expected to make a clean sweep of Tamil Nadu, the CPI-M-led LDF is flexing its muscles to oust the Congress-led UDF in Kerala and West Bengal goes to Trinamool Congress. It is in Assam that the BJP has a chance to put up a fight against the Congress led by the ailing octogenarian Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi.

But the BJP’s main problem in this north-eastern State is that what appeared initially to be a big acquisition to the party from the Congress may prove to be a big liability. He is Himanta Biswa Sarma who has a chequered political history. Starting as an ULFA insurgent, he was caught by the police in the late nineteen eighties. The then Chief Minister Hiteswar Saikia struck a deal with him and Sarma joined the Congress. After Saikia’s death his rise in the State Congress was breathtaking. In a few years after becoming a minister, he became the main rival of Gogoi, itching to get into the former’s shoes. But despite his frequent trips to 14 Akbar Road and 10 Janpath, the Congress High Command decided to stick with Gogoi and made that fact plain to him. In utter frustration he left the Congress and joined the saffron party with his followers in August. (Later, in November, nine dissident Congress legislators loyal to Sarma, also joined the BJP.)

There was jubilation in Guwahati’s Rajiv Bhawan that houses the PCC office. The mood was: Thank God, he has left the party on his own. But there was a mixed feeling in the BJP camp. It was plain to everyone that Sharma had not joined the party to be satisfied with being just an MLA. He had set his sights much higher. He would bid for the top job if the BJP wins the Assembly polls. But there are quite a few among the old guard of the party in the State who nurture the same ambition to become chief minister. They were not at all happy with the entry of a man who had gate-crashed into the party and was only after power.

Meanwhile, the central leadership of the BJP is understood to have made up its mind to project Sarbananda Sonowal, now Union minister for Culture and Sports, to be the chief minister in case of a BJP victory. That makes Sarma’s position shaky and his loyalty to his new party rather uncertain. His role in the BJP demonstrations at Rajiv Bhavan and the insulting of Rahul Gandhi at Barpeta by the BJP supporters have not exactly brightened the image of the party. He was also embroiled recently in a controversy for making some distasteful remarks about a Congress leader and ex- minister Nilamoni Sen Deka.

Coming to electoral prospects, Assam watchers say that in the last Assembly elections, the Congress had won 77 seats in a House of 126. The dissidents led by Sarma later joined the BJP, reducing Congress strength to 45. This time the Congress may lose 32 of the 77 seats it won last time. But the loss may be compensated for by the party winning 20 to 25 new seats. That will give it a comfortable majority to form a government on its own. The BJP, according to some observers, may not get more than 20 to 30 seats. The All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) may bag another dozen and a half.

Meanwhile, Sarma has raised the hackles of the Pradesh Congress so much by his wild charges against Chief Minister Gogoi that the State Government is thinking of reopening all the old police cases registered against him during his ULFA days. One of his latest remarks made in a TV interview is that he apprehends he “may be murdered before the elections by the Tarun Gogoi Government under instructions of Rahul Gandhi.” This shows his desperation. The Congress feels that lately its electoral prospects have revived considerably while those of the BJP have dwindled. (IPA Service)