Ahead of elections, top BPF leaders join BJP in Assam

Guwahati: Ahead of the next year's assembly polls, with a shot in the arm for BJP, two top leaders of Bodoland Peoples Front (BPF), an ally of the ruling saffron party in Assam, including founding leader and Rajya Sabha MP Biswajit Daimary, on Sunday joined the leading partner.

Along with Daimary, who has resigned from the Rajya Sabha on Saturday, BPF's AGeneral Secretary and MLA Emmanuel Mosahary joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in presence of Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, state BJP President Ranjit Kumar Dass and national General Secretary Dilip Saikia in Guwahati.

Sonowal welcomed both the tribal leaders to BJP and hoped that their joining would benefit the party.

The tribal dominated party BPF since 2016 is the ruling partner of the BJP in the state and also a member of the saffron party led North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA).

However, both the BJP and BPF are fighting against each other in the Bodoland Territorial Council's crucial polls to be held on December 7 and 10.

"I have quit the BPF earlier on November 11 and from Sunday I would work for the people from the BJP platform," Daimary told IANS over phone.

The 49-year-old tribal leader, whose Rajya Sabha tenure was scheduled to end in mid 2026, in his resignation letter, available with IANS, to Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu, said: "I request that my resignation be accepted by you with immediate effect."

Daimary and Mosahary's resignations are big setbacks for the BPF just two weeks before the politically significant elections to the 40-member BTC.

The BJP had wrested power from the Congress in Assam in 2016 by becoming the single largest party with 60 MLAs in the 126-member Assembly and formed an alliance with the BPF and the Asom Gana Parishad, which won 14 and 12 seats, respectively. The ruling alliance also has the support of an Independent MLA.

The Hagrama Mohilary-led BPF has been ruling the BTC since its first elections in 2005 after the autonomous tribal constitutional body was constituted in 2003.

The all-important elections to the Assam Assembly are expected to be held in March-April next year.