With the day of the election results in Assam inching close, the fear of horse-trading in the Congress Camp is increasing. A few days back we saw Congress shepherded its Assam candidates to a resort in Sonapur on the outskirts of Guwahati.
The basic idea of Congress was to keep their candidates together and away from poachers. But on April 25 congress released their candidates from the resorts because a lot of controversies took place throughout the state after a video of Congress leaders swimming in the resort went viral on social media.
The Assam Pradesh Congress Committee is already in fear of horse-trading and at that time few posts by Amguri Congress candidate Ankita Dutta have created more panic in the Congress camp.
The daughter of former Congress president Ankita Dutta posted that the Bharatiya Janata Patry Assam President in an interview to an Assamese regional channel said openly that the BJP is losing Amguri, and after the statement, Congress grassroots workers shared that video with great pride. Further in her post, she blamed the Congress top leadership of Assam by stating that many top Congress leaders conducted a signature campaign to remove her father as party president while her father was in ICU. Later, in the post, she appreciated the Chief Minister of Assam Sarbananda Sonowal and wrote during the oath-taking ceremony the Chief Minister prayed for her father’s recovery. She further mentioned while she contested the youth Congress elections many congress leaders whom she expected to support her left no stones unturned to end her political career.
Later, in another post, Dutta clarified that if she manages to win she will be working as a congress MLA of Amguri and if she loses she will work for the Anjan Dutta foundation as earlier.
The next day, Ankita Dutta posted one more post blaming the top congress leadership for not helping her in the elections. She wrote that during the peak of the elections when Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma visited Amguri to campaign for the NDA candidate Pradip Hazarkia she begged the congress leadership to send any star campaigner of the party to campaign for her but the congress leadership didn’t respond to her call. She further wrote that the top leadership of Congress was busy saving their own constituency. She said if she wins the credit of her winning will only go to congress grassroots workers of Amguri.
In a telephonic interview to a regional channel, Ankita Dutta slammed Assam Congress president Ripun Bora and Leader of Opposition Debarata Saikia that both the leaders are not capable of leading the Congress party. Moreover, she said that she does not trust the state leadership of Congress. Dutta said that while she asked the state leadership of Congress to host a meeting of Priyanka Gandhi in her constituency the state leadership ignored her words and held the meeting in border constituencies of Amguri i.e. Nazira constituency of Debarata Saika and Mariani Constituency of Rupjyoti Kurmi. While the anchor of the particular channel asked Dutta that if her demands to change the state leadership not fulfilled what will be her next step. Dutta said she would stay in congress but her claim was not strong.
After such speculations regarding Ankita Dutta joining BJP became strong even before the elections rumours regarding Dutta joining the ruling BJP was on, sources say Dutta was ready to join BJP but didn’t join in fear of controversy.
Headline8 spoke to congress leader Bhupen Borah regarding the matter. He said that Ankita Dutta’s father was congress president and Ankita herself was youth congress vice president. He does not think that Ankita Dutta will join BJP because her family has a lot of contributions to the Congress party.
Now the question is will the speculations come out to be true?
Ankita Dutta might only be used as a horse if BJP fails to get the majority. The interesting thing is Ankita was not in the group when congress candidates were taken to the resort in fear of Horse trading. She mentioned that the leadership of congress asked her to join them but she ignored them and stayed in her house in Guwahati as she came from Kerala.
As, per sources, Ankita may join BJP even if BJP gets majority but the thing is if she joins BJP her MLA post will get abolished and in six months’ time she will have to face re-elections.
According to our sources, Ankita is criticizing the congress leadership openly so that she can get expelled from the party, and then the road to join BJP for her will be free.
However, May 2 is getting closer day by day and we will have to wait for just a few more days to get a clearer picture regarding the matter.