Tezpur, Oct. 30: Senior AGP leader and three-time Sootea MLA Padma Hazarika today formally joined the BJP along with his supporters at a function at Jamugurihat in Sonitpur district.

Hazarika said he wanted to serve his constituency along with the state and the country for which the BJP has the right platform.

He also accused the Congress of playing communal politics and said there has not been any development in the state during the last 15 years of Congress rule owing to rampant corruption.

Hazarika told The Telegraph that the people of Assam are looking for an alternative to the Congress and vowed to work towards ending the "misrule" of the party in the 2016 Assembly polls.

State BJP president Siddhartha Bhattacharya said with Hazarika joining the party, its position had been further strengthened in the north bank.

Jamugurihat, about 250km from Guwahati, today also witnessed a colourful procession by Hazarika's supporters from the historical Pakamura Pathar, through National Highway 15 to the PWD IB field.

Over 10,000 of his supporters welcomed Bhattacharya and the BJP state organisational general secretary Phanindra Nath Sarma.

At the same meeting, a few Congress workers also joined the BJP.

Hazarika joined the AGP in June 1995. He was first elected on an AGP ticket in 1996 but lost to Praneswar Basumatary of the Congress in 2001. He, however, won the seat consecutively in 2006 and 2011.

Sootea constituency was an AGP stronghold since the party's inception but today the scenario has changed with BJP flags fluttering all across Jamugurihat.

Hazarika submitted his resignation letter to AGP president Atul Bora and working president Keshab Mahanta at the party headquarters in Guwahati on October 27.

On that day, the AGP leadership invited him for discussions after reports about him joining the BJP appeared in the media.

Following his resignation, Atul Bora had expressed surprise. He said he failed to understand why Hazarika "decided to join a national party which had adopted anti-Assam policies".

With Hazarika joining the BJP, the rumour mills are agog that Dhakuakhana AGP legislator Naba Kumar Doley and Sadiya Congress MLA Bolin Chetia will also join the party soon.

With several senior AGP leaders joining the BJP in the recent past, it seems the BJP is targeting the vacuum created in the political landscape because of the AGP's decline.