Amid all these, the political parties are preparing themselves to deal with any adverse post-result situation. Already the resort politics is in full swing in the state. The opposition parties are gathering their candidates together in resorts. The main opposition Congress has shifted its MLAs to a resort in Sonapur situated about 30 km east of Guwahati, as reported by the media. Even the Congress’s allies — Badruddin Ajmal led All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) and Hagrama Mohillary led Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) — too had moved their candidates to resorts. According to the reports, AIUDF had moved its candidates to Jaipur while BPF had sent its candidates to Chattisgarh — some even spent a couple of days in Bhutan. Although most of the AIUDF and BPF candidates were forced to come back to the state amid the surge of the Covid-19 virus.

The resort politics of the opposition is based on the assumption of BJP led NDA failing to achieve the magic number 64 on its own on May 2. It’s a fact that the Congress nationally has failed in the past to keep its flock together — and due to its failure the grand old party had lost many key leaders and elected representatives to the BJP. Even in Assam, the arrogance of Congress party’s both state and national leadership, the grand old party lost an important leader like HimantaBishwa Sharma — who is now the BJP’s all-powerful leader in the north-east region. Not only this, Himanta was a powerful minister in the last state BJP government led by Sarbananda Sonowal — who interestingly wasn’t declared by the saffron party as its chief ministerial face leading to endless speculations in the media and political circles that it is giving preference to Himanta by sidelining Sonowal.

Whether or not Himanta will be the CM face in the event of a BJP victory, one thing a section of political analysts ignores is that the saffron party has always stressed upon the Sonowal-Himantajodi. That’s the reason that while Sonowal was given the post of the chief minister, Himanta was given many crucial ministries including finance, health etc, and the responsibility to oversee the affairs of the party in the entire northeast region. By not declaring Sonowal its CM face, BJP willingly played the ambiguity card by giving rise to possibilities of Himanta being the party’s face eyeing the Lower Assam region — where the party faced stiff competition from the Congress-AIUDF alliance. Himanta contested from its traditional Jalukbari seat falling under Lower Assam while Sonowal contested from his Majuli seat in Upper Assam.

Being a political party, BJP also has its own strategies — but it would be foolish to believe that the saffron party would give prominence to Himanta by sidelining Sonowal. After all, the BJP national leadership — including prime minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah — has always given importance to both Sonowal-Himantajodi. In case Sonowal isn’t made the chief minister, the saffron party is no doubt going to give him a crucial post either in the Modi government — where earlier he handled the ministry of youth and sports — or in the party.

On the other hand, Congress-led Grand Alliance too didn’t project the face due to factions within the party. Debrabrata Saikia, the opposition leader and Ripun Bora, the state party president, are in the race for the post of chief minister in case of a Grand Alliance victory. Although Kaliabor Lok Sabha MP Gaurav Gogoi, son of former chief minister Tarun Gogoi, is also in the race, although behind Saikia and Bora.

Coming back to resort politics, the usual charges of Congress and other opposition parties against BJP for poaching their elected representatives only display their acceptance of their candidates preferring money and power over ideology. The bitter fact is the political parties themselves are responsible for giving tickets to such candidates who prefer money and power instead of giving any importance to their party ideologies.

When it comes to resources, no doubt, today BJP is the richest party in the country. It is because it currently rules the country. Not to forget that Congress has resources in Punjab, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan — where the party is in power. Mamata Banerjee led Trinamool Congress, which often projects itself as a “poor party” against cash-rich BJP, itself is rich in resources in West Bengal. CPI(M), which also is known for projecting itself as a “poor party”, is a rich party in Kerala. DMK and AIADMK both are rich parties of Tamil Nadu while Naveen Pattanaik’s BJD is a rich party in Odisha. The key point is every party has enough resources in their own turfs and they use these to capture power from their rivals — and this has become a normalized trend in the country decades ago.

One shouldn’t forget that Congress — which nowadays has been talking constantly of abuse of power by ruling BJP — itself was the richest party in the country when it ruled. The country didn’t forget how the then ruling Congress saved its own UPA-1 government, which lost majority following CPI(M) led Left Front’s withdrawal, in 2008’s trust vote through money power. The scandal is known as the Votes for Cash scandal — which forever maligned the Lok Sabha and the Indian Parliament.

Importantly, the same AIUDF is claiming that 5-6 BJP candidates are in touch with the party — although the saffron party denied this. If BJP contacting Congress, AIUDF and BPF candidates is wrong then how come AIUDF contacting BJP candidates is right? The fact is all political parties are always hungry for power — and they don’t give much importance to ideology in reality. The parties often try to secure power through money and other resources — and if they fail they put the entire blame on the rival for using money, power etc. It would be better for political parties, in reality, to stress more on ideology rather than offering lip service. The Assam’s current resort politics by Congress, BPF and AIUDF once again show the utter failure of these parties to offer tickets to candidates based on ideology.
(IPA Service)