Assam Assembly election 2021: Rajnath, JP Nadda, Yogi Adityanath to lead BJP campaign days ahead of polls

Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP National President JP Nadda and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will be leading the party’s election campaign on Tuesday in of Assam. Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal will also participate in four different programmes on the same day. Nadda will launch BJP’s manifesto for Assam in Srimanta Sankaradeva Kalakshetra, Panjabari, Guwahati, the party said on Twitter. Of the assemblies - Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry - that go to polls this election season, the BJP in a direct contest with Congress only in Assam. Rajnath Singh will address two public meetings - first in Lumding at 1.15 pm and then another one in Hojai at 2 pm. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will be addressing a public meeting in Udharbond, Silchar and Borkhola at 11 am, 12.15 and 2 pm respectively. Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has four public meetings lined up for the day. He will start with a meeting at Giribala School Field, Dhing Batadrava LAC at 11.30 am. His next public meeting takes place at 12.30 pm in Salnah TE, Kaliabor LAC, followed by the third in Furkating, Golaghat LAC at 1.30 pm. The Assam chief minister will address his last public meeting for the day at 2.45 pm in Boginodi, Dhakuakhana LAC. Of the 47 seats that go to polls in the first of the three phases in Assam on 27 March, 42 are from 11 districts of Upper Assam and northern Assam region. The remaining five seats are from central Assam’s Nagaon district. In 2016, when BJP and its ally Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) won 74 of the 126 seats in the Assembly, they had won 35 of the 47 that go to polls on March 27. While the BJP won 27, AGP got 8. Congress won 9 seats while AIUDF bagged two. Since BJP was a dominant force in these areas the last time, it once again has a chance to score an early advantage over Congress and AIUDF-led opposition. On Monday, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra took a swipe at the BJP, saying the state was plagued by several syndicates impacting the governance. In a public meeting at Sarupathar in the Golaghat district of Upper Assam, she drew a reference from the epic Mahabharatha, saying the politics here was divided among two characters - Dhritarashtra and Shakuni Mama. This was Priyanka’s veiled dig at Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal and Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. She accused “Dhritarashtra” of betraying the people of Assam and “Shakuni Mama” of running all the “corruptions and syndicates”.