New Delhi/Guwahati: In what is being considered a major setback for the Congress in Assam, barely days before the state goes to the polls, the party’s senior leader and MP Pradyut Bordoloi joined the BJP on Wednesday.
Bordoloi was invited to join by Assam’s BJP chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, a day after he quit the Congress. The state’s BJP chief Dilip Saikia was present when the former Congress leader joined the party formally.
“Assam Pradesh BJP will recommend to the central leadership that he should fight the assembly elections. There is no reason for someone with self-respect to stay with the Congress party. We aim to bring more Congress leaders into the party,” Biswa Sarma said after Bordoloi joined.
This switch-over has hit the Congress’ top leadership in Delhi hard. Party MP Priyanka Gandhi, on Wednesday, called his resignation “very unfortunate”. Bordoloi was upset over ticket allocation f
or the upcoming Assam Assembly elections, she suggested. The party wished it had a chance to speak with him before he resigned, she said.
“It is very unfortunate. I think he was upset over one ticket allocation, and we wish we had a chance to have a conversation about it,” she said, as reported by TOI.
Bordoloi had mentioned that he had been facing internal issues within the party, in his resignation letter to the AICC president. The move came shortly after Biswa Sarma publicly invited him to join the BJP.
Bordoloi, however, denied that resignation had anything to do with the allocation of tickets. Saying that he was not happy with the decision to quit, he claimed that he felt compelled to take the step. He had allegedly been insulted on several issues by people within the Congress, especially in Assam, he said, claiming that the party leadership did not show sympathy towards him.
This is the second jolt suffered by the Congress in Assam in the last few weeks. About a month ago, former Assam Congress chief Bhupen Kumar Borah also joined the BJP.
Assam goes to the polls on April 9 for all 126 seats. Counting of votes will take place on May 4.
While the BJP, keyed up by these developments, will seek to return to power in the state for a third consecutive term, the Congress is desperate for a win.