Two weeks ago, when former Congress leader Pradyot Bordoloi’s resignation from the party became public on the night of March 17, another piece of information began doing the rounds: that not only would he join the BJP the following day, the ruling party would field him from the Dispur Assembly constituency, the seat of power in the state.
As Bordoloi’s candidacy was announced on March 19, it set off a churn in the BJP. An incensed Atul Bora, the sitting BJP MLA, declared to reporters that the decision was not acceptable and that he was considering either contesting from the seat as an Independent or, even more drastically, extending his support to the Congress’s Mira Borthakur Goswami. A subsequent meeting between him and Mira Borthakur caused a flutter, but Bora soon piped down after Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma paid him a visit and said he would instead reorient his focus on contesting the 2029 Lok Sabha election from Guwahati.
Jayanta Kumar Das, another senior BJP leader and ticket aspirant, however, did not go quietly. A BJP veteran who had been with the party for over three decades, Das resigned from the BJP in a fury and is now contesting as an Independent. And not only is he challenging the party whose ideology he still stands by — he says he is a follower of “Vajpayee’s ideals” — but his defiance has provided insight into the much-talked-about resentment among the “old BJP” about the rise and power of former Congress leaders who have followed Sarma into the BJP over the past decade.
“I have been vying for the Dispur for the past 15 years. Had the ticket gone to Atul Bora again, I would have remained in the party. But I can’t stand by it being given to a person who described himself as having ‘Congress DNA’ two days before getting the BJP ticket. There is a limit to all things. I didn’t work and make sacrifices for 35 years, before anyone even gave chanda (monetary contributions) to the BJP, to make Congress people ministers and MLAs,” Das tells The Indian Express.
BJP’s Dispur candidate Pradyut Bordoloi addresses a public meeting in Guwahati on Monday. (PTI)
At a meeting of party workers in Guwahati’s Beltola on Monday, Bordoloi appears aware of the stir his entry has caused. “I have been working on party organisation from a very young age, and I know the expectations of party grassroots workers towards a party candidate and representative. Please accept me as a member of your family, and I also want to move ahead as a part of you, through all your happiness and sorrows. You might have concerns about me as a candidate; that is natural. I only want to say that Dispur might be a new constituency, but I always consider myself a good student. I have been going across different wards and been trying to understand the issues of the people here,” he says, referring to the fact that he is not only a new entrant to the party, but also to the constituency.
When he jumped ship to the BJP, he was serving his second term as a Congress Lok Sabha MP from Central Assam’s Nagaon parliamentary constituency. Before that, he was elected MLA four times from eastern Assam’s Margherita seat. All four key seats in Guwahati city have been NDA strongholds since the BJP’s rise to power in the state in 2016. In 2021, Bora defeated the Congress candidate by over 1.2 lakh votes. Now, many of those workers have mobilised to support Bordoloi.
Closing ranks
Prasenjit Kalita, a BJP grassroots worker, admits some in the party were upset when Bordoloi’s candidature was announced. “At first, there was some anger among the workers. But then Atul Bora told us that we should support him. So we are working a little harder than we would otherwise, explaining to people that the candidate might be new, but the work will continue as before,” he says.
A resident of Beltola, Purnima Kalita, says she agrees with this outlook. “I would like for the BJP to win, so I support the candidate. There’s been a lot of assistance to women through different schemes, and the roads in the villages have improved a lot,” she says.
However, at a gathering in Dhopolia, Das entreats people to do the opposite. Calling himself a “son of Dispur” and making an appeal, he says, “This will let every party know that people won’t vote for whoever they put up, and compel them to put forward good candidates from within the constituency … They say look at the symbol and vote. But work is not done by the symbol, it is done by people.”
While the BJP remains popular in the urban constituency, some party supporters say they agree with Das.
Dhopolia resident Santanu Chowdhury describes himself as a BJP supporter, and especially as a supporter of the CM. He even says he believes Bordoloi is a “good leader” and a “good parliamentarian.” “But I don’t really like this last-minute switch and entry into the party and the seat. Even if he had joined the party a little earlier and laid the ground for his candidacy for a few months, it would have been more acceptable,” he says.
Amid these discussions among BJP supporters, Congress candidate Mira Borthakur Goswami — who herself joined the Congress in 2021 after 17 years with the BJP — says she is confident the balance will ultimately tip towards her.
While concerns about the constituency’s waterlogging problems and the question of land rights of occupants of hill areas of the constituency dominate each candidate’s interactions with people, she, too, has trained her focus on the BJP’s dynamics as part of her campaign.
“Fifteen days ago, he (Bordoloi) had taken out a chargesheet calling the BJP government the most corrupt government of the country. Fifteen days later, he is saying that the BJP is the best party. It is people’s decision to make,” she says at an election meeting.