The move is meant to tackle resentment among grassroots workers and party veterans.
New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party in Assam has declared that the induction of defectors from other parties to its fold has been closed. This move has been made in an attempt to tackle resentment among its grassroots workers and party veterans.
Sources said that while the decision to close doors on the defectors from other parties has been taken, the party is welcoming people from other domains. Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, Assam BJP spokesperson Rupam Goswami said, “From now on, we have decided that no person with a political background will join the party.”
In Assam, the mass entry of Congress leaders into the BJP has triggered tremendous resentment among party members. Recently, veteran BJP leader and former MP Ram Prashad Sharma quit the party, opposing the changing face of the state BJP. “The BJP is now not what it used to be. Now the party is full of leaders from the Congress. It has become more or less Congress. I joined the BJP through the RSS. Now there is no ideology as everyone is running after political gains and wants to become MLA/minister,” Sharma told The Sunday Guardian. R.P. Sharma has been associated with RSS for more than four decades. He also levelled allegations against Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. He said: “We have sacrificed a lot for the party. But now we feel left out. The Assam BJP is now totally dominated by Himanta Biswa Sarma and Congressmen who tagged along with him. We are not even invited for party meetings.”
The mass induction of Congress leaders, including sitting MLAs, into the Assam BJP started in 2015 when Himanta Biswa Sarma joined the BJP, stating his dissatisfaction with the functioning of the Congress.
Sarma served Congress for 23 years and was a powerful Cabinet minister in the previous Congress government. He is also credited with the massive victory of the BJP in the 2016 Assembly elections in the state and has even held important portfolios such as Ministry of Finance in the state government. Tasked with the responsibility to expand the party’s prospects in Northeast, he was also made chairman of the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA).
After the induction of Himanta Biswa Sarma, many Congress leaders, including five Congress legislators, joined the BJP ahead of the 2016 state Assembly elections. Sources also said Sarma was behind the recent induction of Bhubaneswar Kalita, Congress’ chief whip in Rajya Sabha, and Gautam Roy, former minister, into BJP.
According to sources, 10 more top leaders of Assam Congress, including one Rajya Sabha MP and one former Union minister, are likely to join the BJP. Though several names are doing the rounds in this regard, sources said that these Congress defectors are bargaining with the top leadership in Delhi for their entry into BJP ever since the party’s unit’s decision not to induct political personalities. It must be pointed out here that most of these defectors have been charged with corruption. During the Congress regime in the state, many of these leaders were part of some or the other scam and syndicate. Even the BJP waged a campaign against them in the run-up to the 2016 Assembly elections.
“I don’t know how we will justify these inductions in public,” a local BJP leader said on the condition of anonymity. The resentment among the party ranks has gained limelight since the induction of Gautam Roy received a backlash from local party members and angry party workers demonstrated in front of the party office in Hailakandi, home district of Roy.
The new move by the Assam BJP has been welcomed by party ranks. A BJP leader said that bringing outside elements and bestowing them with unprecedented political power, thereby relegating genuine party workers, would eventually lead to the regression of the party in Assam.