Newly appointed Bodoland Territorial Council chief Pramod Boro on Thursday won the floor test as directed by Gauhati High Court by show of hands, an outcome his immediate predecessor Bodoland People’s Front chief Hagrama Mohilary has decided to challenge legally.
Boro had the support of 22 members in the 40-member BTC belonging to the three-party post-poll alliance of the United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Gana Suraksha Party (GSP).
Gauhati High Court had on Tuesday ordered a “composite floor test” on or before December 26 after Mohilary and others had on December 18 challenged his appointment on the ground that the governor had not invited the leader of the single-largest party to form the council.
In the recently concluded polls to the 40-member BTC, UPPL had won 12 seats, BJP nine, GSP one and Congress one. The BPF emerged as the single-largest party with 17 seats. Since the results were out on December 12, a BPF member and the lone Congress member have supported the alliance.
However, the BPF has not accepted the floor test result as it claimed that the pro-tem Speaker Katiram Boro did not conduct it as per rules.
The main grouse of the BPF members was that the pro-tem Speaker had declined their request to hold the floor test through ballots. Boro, who is from UPPL, went for show of hands.
BPF members chanted slogans and displayed placards with “death of democracy” written on them while Boro was taking oath. The House was adjourned for 10 minutes.
Asserting that he will move court over the outcome, Mohilary, who had been BTC chief since its formation in 2003, said the floor test was not carried out by the pro-tem Speaker in accordance with the direction of the high court.
“We wanted secret ballot but our demand was not accepted. We will challenge it legally,” he said.
The earlier high court case will come up for hearing on January 11.
After winning the trust vote, Boro said, “The alliance will work for the peace and development of the Bodoland Territorial Region, work for development of all 40 constituencies. I also appeal to the BPL to extend its support to the BTC.”
The importance of being part of the BTC was underlined by North East Democratic Alliance convener and Assam cabinet minister Himanta Biswa Sarma at the ruling BJP’s state executive meeting in Karimganj.
He said the party’s win in BTC has ensured the BJP’s win in 2021. He thanked the party workers for the feat because the party had failed to win a single seat in the BTC in 2016. BTC has 12 seats.
The executive meeting focused on issues related to the 2021 polls and came ahead of Union home minister Amit Shah’s two-day visit to Assam on December 26. Besides attending several official functions, Shah will take stock of the state unit’s preparations for the Assembly elections.
Sarma also flayed the Congress and the AIUDF whose alliance, he said, could pose a threat to Assam’s identity.
The Congress, too, is getting into the poll mode with the four newly appointed AICC secretaries (assisting in-charge general secretary Jitendra Singh) holding a meeting with senior PCC leaders, sitting MLAs and MPs on the party’s strategy.
Media department chairman Bobbeeta Sharma said the four secretaries — Vikash Upadhyay, Aditya Sharma, Prithviraj Prabhakar Sathe and Anirudh Singh — will be touring the state to prepare the party for the polls from the booth level. They will look after zones assigned to them.
Party insiders welcomed the development but said the think-tank has to come up with a “positive, inspiring and a practical” narrative besides getting senior leaders to work as a team and speak in one voice.
