Brindaban Goswami: Wait and watch

Guwahati, May 8: The AGP-led group of seven today indicated a major strategy shift, including its original plan of readying a common minimum programme before the declaration of election results on Thursday.

Promode Gogoi of the CPI, one of the constituents of the alliance, said AGP chief Brindaban Goswami told him that the draft would be ready “within a day or two”. What he left unsaid but sufficiently implied was that the alliance could wait until after the declaration of election results to even think about a common minimum programme.

Sources in the AGP confirmed that the party had not even begun working on the draft. The original plan was to circulate the draft of the programme among the constituents and arrive at a consensus well before the announcement of the results.

An AGP general secretary said the party decided against doing anything that would restrict the scope of the alliance during the crucial period of government formation. “Let us first see the election results. Our options are open.”

The AGP leader also hinted that the party had not yet shut the door on the BJP. “If this group does not earn an absolute majority, we will have to approach other non-Congress parties, which will be difficult if we already have a common minimum programme.”

The AGP’s allies are the CPI, CPM, Trinamool Gana Parishad, Samajwadi Party, Autonomous State Demand Committee (Holiram Teron) and the Rabiram Narzary faction of the Bodoland People’s Progressive Front. The alliance was sealed on April 28.

The AGP and its allies were then unanimous about the need to have a common minimum programme ready before the announcement of results, mainly to be able to convince the governor about the conglomerate’s “willingness to work together”.

Promode Gogoi, who was the flood control minister in the erstwhile Prafulla Kumar Mahanta government, recalled that in 1981, the then governor had invited Keshab Gogoi of the Congress to form the government because the loosely-knit Opposition was not ready with such a programme. He said the Opposition would not make the same mistake.

However, the AGP seems to have changed its mind. “If all the constituent partners give in writing to the governor that they support one another, a common minimum programme won’t be required,” a senior party functionary said.