Bodoland polls: UPPL chief Pramod Bodo to be council chief, oath-taking on Tuesday

GUWAHATI: Former student leader Pramod Bodo will take oath as the Chief Executive Member (CEM) of Assam’s autonomous Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) on Tuesday.

He is the president of the United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL). The swearing-in ceremony will be held in Kokrajhar. Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal is scheduled to attend it.

“Five council members -- two from UPPL, two from BJP and one from GSP (Gana Suraksha Party) -- will also be sworn in as executive panel members tomorrow,” the state’s Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told journalists on Monday, adding, “The BJP has neither taken the post of CEM nor Deputy CEM.”

The UPPL along with the BJP and the GSP will rule the council. They have forged a post-poll alliance.

The BTC elections had thrown up a fractured mandate with the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) emerging as the single largest party, winning 17 of the council’s 40 seats. The BJP won nine seats and the UPPL 12. One seat each went to the Congress and the GSP.

Meanwhile, a hotel in Guwahati, where the newly-elected members from the three parties in the alliance were lodged, had been virtually turned into a fortress.

The BPF ruled the BTC ever since its creation in 2003 as a political solution to the Bodo agitation for a separate state. The BTC administers four districts -- Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa, and Udalguri.