(As Assam gears up for the Assembly polls, every Wednesday, Special Correspondent Sukrita Baruah decodes the electoral trends, political signals, and campaign moves shaping the contest.)
In the wake of an increase in the region’s share of Assembly seats and recent political realignment, the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) has emerged as one of Assam’s most crucial electoral battlegrounds in the state.
While the ruling BJP-led NDA has an apparent advantage in this vast western Assam region ahead of the Assembly elections slated for April, the scenario seems to be tricky as well. Currently, all 11 Assembly seats in the BTR’s five districts are with the BJP and its two Bodo allies – the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) and the United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL). However, with the seat-sharing agreement between these NDA partners for the upcoming polls still not firmed up, their equations have turned more fraught now.
Bodo parties
The Bodo parties reign supreme in the region, but they remain dependent on the state government based in Dispur for finances to run the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC), which determines their game of musical chairs.
The BPF, which had ruled the BTC since 2005, had been an ally of the Congress when it was at the helm in Assam. The regional outfit shifted its allegiance to the BJP in 2016, when the latter first came to power in the state.
In the 2020 BTC elections, the incumbent BPF emerged as the single largest party, but the BJP instead tied up with a relatively new party UPPL, formed in 2015, to rule the Council.
Consequently, the BPF aligned with the Congress for the 2021 Assam elections. The UPPL allied with the BJP, with the NDA clinching the elections to return to power. The BJP and UPPL forged a successful alliance for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls too.
However, the political situation changed last September when the BPF swept the BTC elections, wresting the Council from the UPPL-BJP combine. It bagged 28 of 40 seats, with the UPPL and BJP getting just 7 and 5 seats respectively. With the party reinstating its dominance in the BTC barely seven months before the Assembly polls, the BJP dispensation led by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma moved quickly to join hands with the BPF. Himanta inducted BPF leader Charan Boro into his Cabinet, which already has had UPPL leader Urkhao Gwra Brahma as a minister. This has since resulted in an uneasy alliance between the BJP and the two rival Bodoland parties as part of the NDA.
Following the 2023 delimitation exercise in Assam, the number of Assembly seats in the five BTR districts – Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa, Tamulpur and Udalguri – has increased from 11 to 15, accounting for nearly 12% of the 126-member state Assembly, which has thus raised the region’s political stakes.
UPPL vs BPF
On the back foot now, the UPPL has sought to pre-empt the BJP-BPF’s moves by announcing that it would contest all 15 seats in the BTR besides six other seats outside the region.
UPPL chief and ex-BTC Chief Executive Pramod Boro, who kicked off his party’s campaign with a “Rally for Peaceful – Harmonious BTR” in Dotma, Kokrajhar last Sunday, has made it clear that his party would oppose the BPF. However, he is expected to tread cautiously over his party’s relations with the BJP. He launched a sharp attack on the BPF, calling its return to power in the BTC a “beginning of bure din (bad days)” for Bodoland, and accusing it of alleged corruption, law and order breakdown, and growing rifts between different communities.
Boro however steered clear of targeting the BJP. “Till now we are in the NDA. But we will take a decision on how long we will remain with it. We have time on our hands, we will decide on this,” he told the rally.
While Bodos are the single largest tribal group in Assam, which makes up around 6% of the state’s total population, the BTR is a multi-cultural region with around 26 different communities with Bodos accounting for about 30% of its population.
During its tenure in the BTC, the UPPL tried to project itself as a champion of “inclusivity” in the region, which has a long history of conflict. To face the BJP-BPF alliance, the UPPL may reach out to the region’s significant Bengali-origin Muslim population, with its new vice-president R N Sinha recently saying that the BJP’s “anti-Muslim policies” was among the factors being discussed by his party while considering the possibility of “leaving the NDA”.
BJP outreach
However, the BPF appears to be confident and the BJP, despite itself having only 2 of the BTR’s current 11 seats — has stepped up its overtures to Bodos, especially amid discontent among a section of Bodo
organisations against the state government’s bid to back the demand of the Scheduled Tribe (ST) status for six major communities of the state.
In a visit to Assam in January this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended a Bodo outreach programme, “Bagurumba Dahou”, a traditional folk dance of the community. He paid homage to the Bodo icons and highlighted the third Bodo accord signed in 2020. He also took a swipe at the Congress, holding it responsible for instability in Bodoland.
Last year, the BJP-ruled Centre also unveiled a statue of late Bodo icon ‘Bodofa’ Upendranath Brahma in Delhi and named a road in the capital after him. Modi is also likely to visit BTR headquarters Kokrajhar next week.