A day after quitting the Congress ahead of the Assembly elections in Assam, Pradyut Bordoloi joined the state’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday.
The resignation of Bordoloi, an MP from the state’s Nagaon constituency, came less than a month after former Assam Congress chief Bhupen Kumar Borah quit the party and joined the BJP.
Ahead of Bordoloi’s resignation, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma publicly invited Bordoloi to join the BJP, though he claimed that there had been no direct communication between them.
Bordoloi had told The Times of India that he had received an offer from the Hindutva party, but had not clarified whether he would accept it.
The Congress described his resignation as “very unfortunate”, The Hindu reported.
Congress’ Assam chief Gaurav Gogoi, party leader Subrata Borah and Jitendra Singh, who is in charge of the state, had visited Bordoloi’s residence to persuade him to reconsider.
Bordoloi is one of the Congress’ three Lok Sabha MPs from Assam. He was a minister in Tarun Gogoi-led Congress governments in the state.
In a statement to ANI, Bordoloi said that he had felt humiliated on certain matters.
“Even the Congress leadership was not showing sympathy towards me,” Bordoloi said. “I felt like I was isolated [within the Congress]…and became very lonely…I have been associated with the Congress all my life…But, of late I have been facing a lot of difficulty surviving.”
Days earlier, he had written to Singh, outlining why he opposed renominating MLA Asif Mohammad Nazar from the Laharighat Assembly constituency, which falls within his Nagaon parliamentary seat, The Hindu reported.
Bordoloi had claimed that his concerns, including about the alleged links between Nazar and a person accused in an attack on him last year, were not taken seriously by the party leadership, The Indian Express reported.
In April, while campaigning for panchayat elections, Bordoloi and MLA Sibamoni Bora were injured after their convoy was attacked by a mob in Dhing in Nagaon district. The police had arrested a person named Emdadul Islam in connection with the attack.
In his letter to Singh, Bordoloi also said that he was upset that Gaurav Gogoi, the president of the party’s state unit, remained silent when Uttar Pradesh MP Imran Masood, a member of the screening committee for the Assam polls, allegedly dismissed his concerns as “false” during a Congress Central Election Committee meeting in Delhi on March 13, the newspaper reported.
All India Congress Committee member Navajyoti Talukdar also resigned from the party on Tuesday citing “prolonged dissatisfaction with the functioning, lack of coordination, and failure in addressing concerns despite repeated efforts from my side”.
On Wednesday, while telling reporters that Bordoloi was joining the BJP, Talukdar said that Sarma “is a very dynamic leader” and “we have spoken to [him]”, ANI reported.
Assembly elections in Assam will be held on April 9 and the counting of votes will take place on May 4.
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