BJP & allies will win 100+ seats in Assam polls: Dass

GUWAHATI: The ruling BJP in Assam on Monday pitched its tent to prepare for the assembly election early next year with strong claims that the party and its allies will retain power by winning more than 100 seats in the 126-member assembly.
“BJP will get 84 lakh votes and along with our allies we will win more than 100 seats and retain power,” state party president Ranjeet Kumar Dass said, adding, “BJP has 42 lakh members in Assam and if each one of them bring at least one more vote from either their family or their friends, we end up getting at least 84 lakh votes.”
Taking the electorate size of the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Dass said from the two crore voters, even if 75% of them cast their votes, there will be 1.5 votes cast, which means BJP’s target of 84 lakh votes would translate to a vote share of 56% in terms of votes cast. “In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, we had 10 candidates and nine of them won. We got 64 lakh votes in total in the 10 constituencies,” he added.
The size of the state electorate was nearly two crore in the 2016 assembly election, which saw a polling percentage of over 84%. In the Lok Sabha polls three years later, the state’s electorate increased by 20 lakh voters, which translates to an addition of about 6.5 lakh voters every year. Going by this average, the estimated number of voters in the 2021 election would be about 2.3 crore.
Dass said BJP’s confidence is based on the “successful” governance scripted in the last four years of the government. “We have launched several welfare schemes which have overwhelmingly benefited women, widows, farmers, specially challenged people, senior citizens and small sector industries,” he added.
Last week, finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced the state government’s biggest and unique Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme worth Rs 2,800 crore to provide succour to women beneficiaries of over 17 lakh impoverished families till their economic status improves. The scheme, branded as “Orunodoi”, was announced in the last state budget under which a minimum sum of Rs 830 would be deposited in the bank account of a woman member of a poor family every month.
Dass said BJP will be thinking on bringing back its senior leaders to the assembly. “In the present assembly, majority of our party MLAs are from the young generation. We are thinking on the possibility of bringing people from the older generation as well this time,” he added.