GUWAHATI, May 17 - The alliance partners of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today laid to rest the speculations about the chief ministerial candidate of the alliance and assured that they would accept the candidate chosen by the BJP. The BJP has already announced that its State unit president Sarbananda Sonowal would be the chief ministerial candidate of the party.
Talking to The Assam Tribune, AGP president Atul Bora asserted that there is no controversy on the issue. �We came into the alliance with the BJP after the party had already declared Sonowal as the chief ministerial candidate,� he pointed out.
Bora said that the alliance partners had gone to seek people�s mandate together and in most of the public meetings, the AGP had accepted Sonowal as the chief ministerial candidate. There is no question of changing the stand of the party now, he said.
The AGP president said that though the exit polls cannot be termed as hundred per cent correct, such polls reflected the mood of the people of Assam. Almost all the exit polls predicted formation of the Government by the BJP led alliance in the State. He said that in the last Assembly polls, the AGP managed to win only ten seats, but this time, they are confident of considerable improvement of the performance.
Bora said that the AGP has already given the list of issues to be considered for inclusion in the common minimum programmed of the alliance and the issues would be discussed immediately after the declaration of the election results. He also said that the issue of composition of the ministry, if the alliance comes to power, would be discussed after the announcement of the results.
The Bodoland People�s Front (BPF), the other alliance partner of the BJP, also declared that there is no controversy regarding the chief ministerial candidate of the alliance.
BPF spokesman Khampa Borgoyari said that the party would accept the chief ministerial candidate selected by the BJP and there should not be any confusion over the issue.
Borgoyari said that they accept the result of the exit polls, which predicted formation of the Government by the BJP led alliance and claimed that on its own, the BPF would be able to win at least 13 seats. He said that the composition of the Ministry would be discussed by the alliance partners after the declaration of the poll results.
