GUWAHATI: Assam’s autonomous Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) elections, billed as the “semi-final” ahead of Assembly polls next year, are likely to throw up a fractured mandate.
The votes of the two-phase elections were being counted on Saturday. When reports last came in, Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) was leading in 18 seats, United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL) in 11, BJP in eight, Congress in one, and others in two.
This is the first election in the BTC since the Centre had signed the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) peace accord with the All Bodo Students’ Union and some factions of the insurgent group National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) in January this year.
The BTC administers four districts such as Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa, and Udalguri, all of them falling under BTR.
The BJP, which heads Assam’s ruling coalition, is likely to emerge as the biggest winner. The party had won only one of the 40 seats in the 2015 BTC elections. This time around, it ditched ally BPF and allegedly forged a tacit alliance with UPPL. If the BJP-UPPL combine crosses the halfway mark of 20 seats, it will rise to power.
The BPF has ruled the BTC ever since its creation in 2003 as a political solution to Bodo agitation for a separate state.