Guwahati, April 28: The AGP today stitched together a seven-party alliance and started working on a common minimum programme, confident of beating the Congress in the numbers game when the day of reckoning arrives.

Intriguingly, the regional party’s efforts to cobble together a coalition potentially capable of outnumbering the Congress bore fruit after the elections but before the declaration of results.

Explaining the rationale behind forming the seven-party alliance during the gap between polling and counting of votes, CPI veteran Promode Gogoi said the conglomerate was hedging its bets on the governor inviting the “single-largest entity” to form the government in the event of a hung Assembly.

“We need to have the alliance in black and white to prove that we are one entity. We are not doing it just for the sake of it,” he added.

The seven parties in the group are the AGP, CPI, CPM, Autonomous State Demand Committee (Holiram), Bodoland People’s Progressive Front (Rabiram), Trinamool Gana Parishad and Samajwadi Party.

Gogoi said the alliance was hopeful of winning the requisite number of seats in the 126-member Assembly to form the government. The results will be declared on May 11.

Emerging from a meeting of delegates from six of the seven constituents of the alliance, AGP chief Brindaban Goswami said his party had been given the responsibility of drafting the common minimum programme. “The draft will include issues highlighted by the parties in their election manifestos,” he added.

The AGP and its allies were reportedly 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 “wil-lingness to work together”.

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 a common minimum programme. He said the Opposition would not make the same mistake.

Goswami said the AGP would compile a draft of the programme soon and discuss it with its allies.

He said the very fact that seven parties had come together was a big achievement in itself. These parties had only seat-sharing arrangements before the elections.

Telugu Desam Party general secretary K. Rama Mohana Rao was present during the discussions today. The Andhra Pradesh leader had also campaigned for the AGP.

Only the CPM was not represented at the meeting that finalised the alliance. Senior CPM leader Udhav Barman said his party would not be part of the government, but certainly lend support to any non-Congress, non-BJP group.