New Delhi, March 3: The BJP today gave 24 of Assam's 126 Assembly seats to its newest and principal ally, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), with whom it sealed a formal alliance yesterday.

Asked how the AGP, which had twice ruled the state on its own, had consented to being the BJP's junior partner and fight approximately one-fifth of the seats, the party's president Atul Bora smiled and parried the question.

Bora and the AGP's working president, Keshav Mahanta, addressed the media at the BJP headquarters here late this evening along with Union minister for information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad, Assam BJP president Sarbananda Sonowal, who is also the NDA's chief ministerial candidate, and the BJP's state election management committee convener Himanta Biswa Sarma.

BJP national general secretary and Assam prabhari (minder) Ram Madhav, who was the main interlocutor with the AGP, made a discreet entry into the news conference venue, sat with the media and exited unobtrusively without posing for photo-ops with the leaders on the dais later.

Queried on whether the AGP would go to the polls under the leadership of Sonowal, who had worked in the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) and the AGP under Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, former chief minister, Bora replied, "What is there in this? He was in the AASU and then in the AGP and we all worked together. There are no problems."

Prasad announced that the NDA coalition in Assam would be bound by a common minimum programme (CMP) and campaign jointly with the Bodoland People's Front (BPF), the Tiwa Jatiya Oikya Manch and Rabha Hasong Jauth Sangram Samity. However, he refused to reveal the number of seats the BJP would contest. "You will hear of it shortly. We are talking to our other allies," Prasad said.

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He refused to get into the CMP details, just indicating that the broad themes would be "politics for change" and "national security", underpinned on the issue of "infiltration" and the alleged failure of the Congress government to not only weed out "illegal" migrants from Bangladesh but confer Indian citizenship and nurture them as "vote banks".

Explaining why they had allied with the AGP in particular, Prasad said they were "similar" on the issue of infiltration and its ramifications for Assam's demographic changes. "The AGP is a product of a strong sense of resentment against this. There are two things here. One, to free Assam of the corruption, non-development and mal-governance of the Tarun Gogoi government for 15 years that led to a lot of suffering and the unhindered infiltration that went on under the Congress's patronage and support," he said.

A BJP source said, "This election is about preserving the Assamese identity and protecting the interests of Hindus in general. When we say Assamese, we mean the various tribal groups too."

Bora elaborated on the centrality of "infiltration" in the alliance's discourse, admitting that for the two terms the AGP ruled, "we also failed to fulfil the aspirations of people, we failed to detect and deport the foreigners. The IMDT (Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, 1983) was a deterrent."

He added, "The act was repealed later by the Supreme Court but the Congress did nothing when it was in power. We feel that with the BJP's help, we will implement the Assam Accord".

Prasad, who was Sonowal's lawyer when the IMDT Act was legally challenged, said, "The big difference is that under the (existing) Foreigners Act, the onus is on a foreign citizen claiming Indian citizenship to prove he is one. Under the IMDT Act, the onus was on the government."

When Sonowal was asked about the reported backlash in the BJP against the alliance with the AGP in various places, he said, "Our workers at the grassroots are committed first and foremost to the BJP".

"Our party is one. Everyone's working under Sonowal's leadership," Prasad added.

Sarma, asked if he was "comfortable" with the BJP-AGP's ideological position on "infiltrators" after spending years in the Congress whose stance on the issue was qualitatively different, said, "Till Rajiv Gandhi was around, the Congress was committed to the Assam Accord. His son Rahul Gandhi changed the goalpost. He tried for an alliance with the AIUDF (led by Badruddin Ajmal). With that the Congress's ideological position changed."

Till yesterday, the Assembly polls were being seen as a direct fight between the BJP and the Congress in most seats and the AIUDF and the Congress in lower Assam. But the AGP-BJP alliance has brought the AGP back into the poll frame.

Though the Congress has harped on how earlier alliances between the AGP and the BJP in the 2001 Assembly polls and in the 2004 and 2009 Lok Sabha polls had only helped the ruling party, Congress insiders admitted that the AGP-BJP alliance could help the AGP retain the 10 seats it had won in the 2011 Assembly polls.

"The AGP is back in the picture. They might also gain a few more from the 24 than the seats it has got from the BJP, something which was unthinkable till yesterday. We will win but we will have to work doubly hard now," one of them said.

AGP insiders also said the alliance should motivate demoralised partymen to look forward to something positive after 15 years in the wilderness. Past alliances with the BJP did not work because those who would have otherwise voted for the BJP did not vote for its ally, the AGP, choosing to vote for others in the fray instead.

The BJP had earlier tied up with the Tiwa Jatiya Oikya Manch, Rabha Hasong Jauth Sangram Samity and the Bodoland Peoples' Front, the ruling dispensations in the Tiwa, Rabha and Bodoland autonomous councils, a move which could further check division in the anti-Congress votes.

In the 2011 Assembly polls, the BJP and the AGP had won eight and 20 seats while the Congress had won 71 seats. In the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, the AGP and the BJP had won two seats each while the Congress had won nine. The 2009 Lok Sabha polls saw the BJP bag four, the AGP one and the Congress seven seats. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP, fighting alone, won seven of the 14 seats, its best performance, while the AGP failed to open its account.

A party was born out of the 1985 anti-foreigners movement, the AGP will have to work hard to reconcile its disagreements with the BJP on contentious issues like giving Indian citizenship to Hindu refugees from Bangladesh.

Assam BJP spokesperson Rupam Goswami said, "There is no issue that can't be resolved through discussion. Whatever differences we have will be sorted out through discussion between the AGP and our leadership. Here the bigger issue is that we have come together to oust the Congress from power to save the identity and existence of the indigenous people of Assam and for that both sides will have to make some adjustments in the greater interest of the state."