Senior leader Prodyut Bora to quit as BJP opens door to Congress' Hemanta Biswa Sarma

NEW DELHI: The BJP’s Assam unit had been barely given time to rejoice in its unprecedented good results in the local body polls in the state before news that national executive member Prodyut Bora would be quitting the party.

Bora’s move is being seen as the strongest possible portent that former Congress minister and dissident in chief Hemanta Biswa Sarma, who had to quit the Tarun Gogoi government after suggestions that he was implicated in the Saradha scam, would be joining BJP.

Bora had, in November last year alluded to the same in a facebook post and criticised the party for pursuing Sarma. “I will be sending my resignation letter to the party president on Wednesday, where I shall elaborate on my reasons for quitting,” he told ET.

He accepted that “one of the reasons was the possible joining of Hemanta Biswa Sarma, but there are other issues as well.”

After J&K, Assam is considered one of the “frontline” Hindutva states for the BJP and Sangh Parivar. “After the inroads into Jammu and Kashmir, ideologically, Assam is extremely important for us because of the kind of minority politics that is practiced there,” said a senior central leader of the BJP.