‘BPF MP, MLA to join BJP month before BTC polls’

GUWAHATI: BJP tore into the ranks of its ally Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) by roping in its two key leaders — general secretary and MLA Emmanuel Mosahary and spokesman and MP Biswajit Daimary — as it stepped up its campaign to wrest control of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) from the regional party in the elections next month.
On the sidelines of campaigning for BTC election at Udalguri, BJP’s influential leader and cabinet minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced on Monday, “Both Emmanuel Mosahary and Biswajit Daimary will join BJP in a day or two.Since Daimary is an MP we have fixed a time for his joining.”
BPF leader and MLA Rabiram Narzary dismissed speculations that the flight of Mosahary and Daimary to BJP would have any impact on BPF. “This was known to everybody for quite some time that Daimary and Mosahary would join BJP. There is zero impact on BPF because they are leaving. In fact our campaigning for the election has reached the zenith and now seems like celebration.”
The election to the autonomous council, which administers four districts of Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa and Udalguri, are set to be held in December. The elections to the 40 seats of the council were scheduled in April but had to be put on hold because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sarma, who has been campaigning vigorously in BTR for last couple days on Monday claimed that the BJP would form the government in the autonomous council. “This time, there will be a BJP government at Kokrajhar and we will have the chief executive member from BJP,” Sarma said.
He stated, “This fight is not about Hagrama Mohilary, Pramod Boro or Himanta Biswa Sarma, but it is all about the development of the Bodoland Territorial Region. The people will decide for the development of the BTR.” Despite the BJP-BPF alliance in the state, the two parties are fighting the BTC election on their own.