‘The problem is Himanta Biswa Sarma’: A veteran’s exit brings Assam BJP divide to fore

After months of tensions with the BJP leadership, Ashok Sarma resigned from the party on August 2 and formally joined the Congress on August 10. After completing the switch to the Opposition party, Ashok Sarma said his decision had “caused a storm” within his family full of RSS members — he said all three of his brothers and his two sisters are associated with the Sangh.

Ashok Sarma told The Indian Express he was compelled to leave the BJP because of a “conspiracy” by “some new leaders” in the party. “My problem was that the principles on which we had brought up the BJP to form a government in Assam are gone. The problem is Himanta Biswa Sarma. Just look at the things he says. He called himself a pogola kukur (mad dog),” he said, referring to the CM’s remarks at the BJP state executive meeting earlier this month. In a “warning” to the Congress, Himanta Sarma said the party should not “provoke” a “pogola kukur”.

“We have worked in politics to serve people. We receive a salary as MLAs and I receive a pension, but we are not MLAs and ministers just for our profit. But today the way wealth is being gathered by those leading the government is being spoken about everywhere … I cannot support this mentality,” he said.

During his joining ceremony, Ashok Sarma also attributed his decision to the state BJP leadership’s “communalism”, saying this was a new character of the party in the state.

“In these three years, by repeatedly talking about Hindu and Muslim, he (Himanta Biswa Sarma) has divided society. I have joined this party (Congress) with the resolution to topple the effort that he is making to rule by presenting himself as a benefactor of Hindus … I have worked for Hindutva for so long but I never went against anyone. I worked to take all people of all sections forward together under the BJP, I did not try to divide society by just saying ‘Hindu, Hindu, Hindu’,” said the former MLA.

Earlier, Ashok Sarma had cited “disrespect” to senior party leaders as a cause for discontent. Matters got particularly heated when BJP MP Dilip Saikia, who represents Darrang-Udalguri, accused Ashok Sarma of campaigning against him during this year’s Lok Sabha elections.

There have been some other signs too of disgruntlement in the ruling party. After the parliamentary polls, Khumtai MLA Mrinal Saikia, who has been with the BJP for almost three decades, blamed the party’s aggressive campaign led by the CM for its loss in Jorhat. Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi won the constituency. During the campaign, Saikia had accused Jayanta Malla Baruah of hurting the party’s prospects because of his “style of talking”.

Former Nagaon MP Rajen Gohain, a former state BJP president, has criticised the party’s Lok Sabha campaign. Before the elections, he said the party’s prospects would be hurt because of its “neglect” of “old workers of the party”. Last year, Gohain resigned as Assam Food and Civil Supplies Corporation chairman in protest against the changes in the Nagaon Lok Sabha seat in last year’s delimitation exercise. Former state BJP president and sitting MLA Siddhartha Bhattacharya has also, on different occasions, expressed his unhappiness with the new state BJP leadership.

However, it is Ashok Sarma’s move to the Congress that is the starkest display yet of the rift in the party triggered by the rising influence of the new crop of BJP leaders led by the CM who joined the BJP from the Congress in 2015. This group of BJP leaders includes several Cabinet ministers such as Jayanta Malla Baruah, Pijush Hazarika, and Ajanta Neog.

Himanta Sarma has shrugged off the veteran leader’s exit and denied there was an “old-new” divide in Assam BJP. He made light of it at the recent state executive meeting, claiming he was “happy to see Hindu believers” join the Congress. “If the RSS’s movement can extend to the Rajiv Bhawan, I want it to happen. If our Sangh’s workers can go and roar like lions there tomorrow, no one can be happier than us. The RSS’s ideal is not of building the BJP but the society and nation,” he said.

Referring to leaders like him who left the Congress for the BJP, the CM said, “If we could have got an environment in the Congress to work for indigenous interests, we would never have left it. Today, if they can create an environment to work for Assam’s Hindus and indigenous people in Rajiv Bhawan, they will become ideals for us.”