Two Congress MLAs, BPF leader join BJP in Assam

Months ahead of the Assam assembly elections, the Congress suffered yet another jolt with two former MLAs Ajanta Neog and Rajdeep Gowala joining the BJP. Now the party can no longer retain its Opposition party status since it is reduced to only 20 MLAs now in the 126-member assembly. To remain the main Opposition party in the Assam legislative assembly, a party needs to have at least 21 MLAs. Bodoland People's Front (BPF) Bolendra Mushahary joined the ruling party.  

Both leaders joined the BJP in the presence of Assam BJP president Ranjit Das and BJP's key strategist in the Northeast Himanta Biswa Sarma in Guwahati on Tuesday. Newly inducted  BJP leaders also claimed that while the ruling party is futuristic, the Congress is a "visionless party". "There is a huge gap in Congress - gap between the party leadership and grassroot workers and that is the main reason we left. There is an isolation of the grassroot workers. Their national leadership doesn't care about what grassroots workers think," Ms Neog said.  Gowala said there is "no discipline in Congress" and the party is "directionless"."Congress is a party with no future, no vision - it's directionless, there is a leadership crisis and it cannot do anything good to the people," Gowala added.

Gowala and Ms Neog are former Congress MLAs from Lakhipur and Golaghat respectively. Ajanta Neog was a close confidante of former Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and part of his cabinet as well. Both the leaders had resigned from the state assembly and the Congress party had expelled them for their alleged "anti-party" activities.