Ram Madhav on Assam victory

Via NewsX, Ahmedabad

It’s most humbling and challenging mandate. We dedicate this victory to Ma Kamakshya, the holy river Brahmaputra and Shrimad Shankaradeva. They symbolize what we call Assam, its identity, its culture, its traditions. We now have mandate to protect this identity. Then we are supposed to deliver a good governance that gives people development. It’s a huge challenge before our govt. I am sure with this kind of good mandate our leadership under Sarbananda Sonowal will be able to deliver.

What were the expectations

We were expecting anywhere between 75-80 seats for our alliance and this number that we are getting where the BJP is likely to inch towards simple majority on its own and together with the alliance partners to secure more than 2/3rds majority – almost 90 seats was definitely not expected by us also. That’s why I said it is very very humbling experience for all of us. People have reposed so much faith. You must remember that Assam has very peculiar demography. I mean a party like BJP which actually contests 90-95 seats, for such a party together with two parties to get close to 90 seats is something like a 90% victory. I am told that the voting percentage is also very surprisingly high. We secured 48-49% votes which is also again a very huge record in this election. It’s definitely very historic victory for us.

Will go ahead in alliance or alone?

Whatever victory we secured in this elections is because of the dream alliance that we forged. It’s a rainbow alliance. It’s a dream alliance for people of Assam. You must remember that even at the time of the Assam agitation in 1980s this kind of huge diverse parties coming together had not happened. It is for the first time that almost all sections of the Assamese society got together under BJP’s leadership. Because of this alliance we could generate that kind of a hope and trust in hearts and minds of people of Assam. Thereby they extended such a huge support to us. We won because we forged such alliance. Our alliance will continue to remain as one and the state will be ruled by alliance and not BJP only.

Started working one and half year ago

We started working on Assam elections about one and half year ago. We had a road map before us. It had three-four stages. We wanted to do a few things in the runup to it. And one of that was to find appropriate time to project Shri Sarbananda Sonowal as CM candidate. We did everything right in this election. We did not do any wrong thing in this election but we also did everything at the right time, opportune time, that has helped us in securing this kind of a mandate. And yes projecting Sonowal as CM was one of the important parts of our strategy.

Local touch

Each election is different. Assam needed a particular kind of campaign where we wanted to focus more on the local issues and more importantly we put the onus of this election on the state leadership. Whether Sonowal or Himanta Sarma or our six members of parliament here or our other senior leaders of the state – they owned up the election. They didn’t think that my election will be carried on the shoulder by Prime Minister or somebody else. PM’s popularity, his campaign, the campaign of Amit Shah helped, but the local leadership right from CM candidate down our MPs, MLAs everybody owned up the election. When they bump in they tell me their report card – ‘out of 9, I delivered 7 to BJP’. That is the secret of this election. Local leadership owned up the election in big way.

RSS too helped

Vote share wise, we secured almost close to 50% support of the people of the state, looking at the demography, every section, organization has helped us. BJP cadres have worked hard, RSS cadres did help us so as other groups. Entire Assamese society has helped us. It’s a mandate from entire people of Assam including RSS and BJP karyakartas and other groups.

Ideologically

From the ideological point of view, Northeast is very important for us. I have been part of this pariwar(RSS) for four decades now. Two major issues from the point of national integration include NorthEast and Kashmir. We have BJP govts in place at both places. We are committed to national integrity. That is one aspect. Number two is to give great development to North East. The third is strategic importance of entire North East. It’s a gateway to entire South East area. PM has brought in Act East policy. This(victory) will boost Act East. Through Act East Assam and entire North East is going to benefit in big way.

On Sarma’s joining BJP

Firstly, if their(Congress’s) leaders leave them and join other parties, how can they blame us? It is their responsibility to keep their house in order. It is very funny with Congress party. Their Yuvraj, their leadership don’t know how to manage their party. Whether Arunachal, whether Assam, all good people are welcomed. People like Himanta Biswa Sarma has done great hard work. Sonowal, Sarma have worked tirelessly to ensure victory. Sarma will play very important role in Assam’s new govt and will give his services to fulfilling the commitments that we gave to people of Assam.

On Bangla infiltrators issue

This mandate that we got is primarily for two issues – one is development the other is protecting Assam from the infiltrators. Our govt together with Govt of India led by PM Modi will do all that is needed to ensure that the border is completely sealed and . After completing NRC once the infiltrators are identified, whatever needs to be done by state govt, the state govt will take those steps on a priority basis. So Development and protecting Assam’s identity are going to be the two main priorities.