GUWAHATI: Maintaining a tradition, BJP national president JP Nadda will launch the party’s Assam poll campaign from Silchar in Barak Valley on Monday.
He will address people at ‘Vijay Sankalpa Samabesh’ in the southern Assam city. The party’s state unit chief Ranjit Kumar Dass and Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal will be among leaders who will attend it.
Incidentally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi too had launched the 2019 Lok Sabha election campaign in Assam from Silchar. The BJP said it would remain grateful to the city’s residents.
“In the 1991 Assam elections, we had won 10 seats, nine of them from Barak Valley. We are grateful to Silchar residents,” BJP spokesman Rupam Goswami told this newspaper.
The valley has three districts such as Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi and 15 Assembly segments. Eight of them are currently held by the BJP. Six of them are in Cachar. Silchar is its district headquarters.
The RSS had started its activities in Assam years before the 1991 polls but the BJP started growing around that time.
The party’s Cachar district unit is upbeat about Nadda’s visit.
“Yes, we will sound the poll bugle tomorrow. Our goal is to win at least 100 of the state’s 126 seats,” BJP’s district unit general secretary Kanad Purkayastha said.
That the campaign will be launched from Silchar proves how much the BJP values the valley, he said.
With Assembly elections due in April-May, the BJP has stepped up its activities. The state’s Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is taking the lead in strengthening the party’s grassroots connect by visiting places and addressing people.
In sharp contrast, the Congress lacks visibility. It suffered a jolt recently when two of its MLAs, including a former minister, deserted the party to wear saffron.
Minority-based All India United Democratic Front has also remained away from the public since drawing a blank in the Bodoland Territorial Council elections, held last month.