Accusations that “traitors” are sabotaging the chances of some of its candidates have rocked the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the counting of votes in the Legislative Council elections scheduled for May 4, prompting state party president Dilip Saikia to urge his colleagues to refrain from commenting on potential saboteurs.
On April 25, former BJP state president Ranjit Kumar Das, a minister in the outgoing government, posted on Facebook that he did not fight the communists alone, but fought some “camouflaged traitors” who were behaving like his own traitors. A day later, Das referred to the defeat of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in the 19th century and said: “I am not the Napoleon of [the] “Battle of Waterloo, I am Ranjit of Waterloo in Bhawanipur-Surbhuj constituency.”
On April 27, Das, who contested the election against Communist Party of India (Marxist) legislator Manoranjan Talukdar, asserted that he would win the election comfortably. He added that the names of the traitors “who set up a maze of traps” to ensure his loss will be revealed in an appropriate forum before the votes are counted.
On April 26, BJP (Kamalpur) MP Diganta Kalita said that he would reveal details of all traitors in the BJP on May 1. Within hours of his post, a recording emerged of his alleged phone call with a BJP leader threatening to sabotage Kalita’s chances.
Kalita is an aide to Prime Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. He defected from the Congress and joined the BJP in 2015, like Sarma.
Saikia appealed to BJP workers not to make such statements or posts on social media. “Some aspirants did not get tickets and were unhappy, but once the election process started, 99.9% of them supported the party’s candidates. Words like traitors do not exist in the BJP’s dictionary,” Saikia said.
Congress leader Debabrata Saikia said they have maintained all along that all is not well within the BJP. He added, “Allegations of sabotage made by candidates, whether they are ministers or representatives, do not bode well for the ruling party, and we are confident that the government will be formed.”
The BJP first came to power in Assam in 2016. It hopes to secure a third consecutive term in alliance with the Asom Gana Parishad and the Bodoland People’s Front. The coalition set a goal of securing about 90-100 seats out of a total of 126 seats. Almost all opinion polls indicated his return to power.
