Congress kicks off poll campaign

Scathing attack on AGP-BJP tie as ‘opportunistic’

Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi and PCC president Bhubaneswar Kalita wave at supporters during the conference on Sunday. Picture by Eastern Projections Guwahati, March 9 : The Congress today kicked off its Lok Sabha campaign in Assam by launching a scathing attack on the BJP-AGP alliance, playing the Jai ho number from Slumdog Millionaire to motivate its workers. Addressing hundreds of Congress workers at the open session on the concluding day of the party’s state-level political conference at Sarusajai Stadium, chief minister Tarun Gogoi announced that a decade “of AGP misrule in Assam” and “neglect” of the state during the BJP-led NDA rule at the Centre would be key poll planks of the party for the forthcoming parliamentary elections.  Mincing no words, Gogoi described the AGP-BJP tie-up as an “opportunistic alliance between a parochial regional party and a communal national party”. He asked party workers to highlight the achievements of the Congress governments in Delhi and Dispur. Gogoi exuded confidence that the Congress would be able to win 13 of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam. The party is leaving the Kokrajhar seat to its ally, the Bodoland People’s Party. Rajya Sabha MP and AICC observer for Assam Mabel Rebello and PCC president Bhubaneswar Kalita were among those who exhorted party workers to highlight economic development, improvement in law and order and overall progress during the past seven years of Congress rule in Assam to the voters. The AGP was swift to retaliate, with Atul Bora, one of its general secretaries, pointing out that the Congress should mind its own business. Addressing the media at the party headquarters in Ambari, he said: “Our tie-up with the BJP is issue-based and in the interest of the state. The Congress says it signals the end of regionalism but it will be better if they look at the mirror and ask why they are in an alliance with the BPF. If you look at it closely, the Congress has lost its national character, tying up with whichever party it can to cling on to power. The elephant will return stronger than before after the polls. The alliance will free the state and the nation from the Congress’ misrule and corruption.” He alleged that what the Congress had done on the law and order front was exposed during the Mumbai terror attack.  AGP president Chandra Mohan Patowary later said the issues that had brought the AGP and the BJP together were demands for an end to infiltration, immediate steps for a truce with militant outfits, declaration of flood and erosion as national problems, sealing of the Indo-Bangladesh border, updating of the National Register of Citizens, issuance of photo-identity cards and according Scheduled Tribe status to the six communities of Assam.