GUWAHATI: The statewide protests in Assam against the BJP-led Central government’s move to pass the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, to legitimize the stay of the non-Muslim immigrants of Bangladesh besides Pakistan and Afghanistan in India had little impact on the saffron party in the state’s panchayat elections.
The BJP, which heads Assam’s coalition government, has built up a solid lead over opposition Congress in the polls. When reports last came in, the counting of ballots, which started on Wednesday, was on.
According to State Election Commission sources, the BJP has so far won 7,768 Gaon Panchayat Members (GPM) seats, 653 Anchalik Panchayat Members (APM) seats, 605 Gaon Panchayat presidents (GPP) seats and 223 Zila Parishad Members (ZPM) seats.
The Congress was a distant second with 3,948 GPM seats, 365 APM seats, 293 GPP seats and 131 ZPM seats. The two-phase polls were held on December 5 and 9.
There are 2,200 Gaon Panchayats in Assam. Altogether 78,571 candidates contested for 26,808 seats. Of them, 1,512 contested for 420 ZPM seats, 7,004 for 2,199 APM seats, 7,667 for 2,199 GPP seats and 62,388 for 21,990 GPM seats.
Altogether 734 candidates – 380 from BJP, 193 from Congress, 28 from Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), ten from All India United Democratic Front, one from CPM, five from Bodoland Peoples Front (BPF) and 117 Independents – were declared elected unopposed.
Riding on Narendra Modi wave, the BJP had grabbed 60 of Assam’s 126 seats in the 2016 Assembly elections. By winning the polls, the party had opened the gateway to the Northeast as it went on to capture power in several states of the Northeast such as Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Tripura.
However, in the past year or so, the BJP’s image took a beating in Assam following the Modi government’s bid to get the Citizenship Bill passed in the Parliament.
Seventy organisations, opposition parties and even the AGP, which is an ally of the BJP and constituent in the Sarbananda Sonowal government, stand opposed to the controversial Bill. They say the Assamese identity will be threatened if lakhs of “Hindu Bangladeshis” (read Bengali Hindus) are “dumped” in the state through the Bill’s passage. The panchayat elections were held amidst widespread protests against the Bill.