Taking a jibe at I.N.D.I.A, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Sunday that the Congress-led opposition bloc was intact, though not on Earth, but on ‘the Moon and Sun.’
“The INDI alliance is intact, not on Earth, but perhaps on the Moon and Sun. Here, we have not seen the presence of many parties, such as the Trinamool Congress and Janata Dal (United). So, with our normal eyes, we cannot see the INDI alliance. However, it (the opposition bloc) might be on the Sun or Moon, and so we cannot see it with naked eyes,” the BJP leader, an ex-Congressman, remarked.
Sarma’s statement came after the Congress recently stated that I.N.D.I.A would cross 272 seats in Lok Sabha, with that figure being the halfway (majority) mark in the 543-seat House.
Sarma, meanwhile, also asserted that the people of India, and Assam in particular, will participate in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections not defensively, but ‘freely and wholeheartedly.’
“The people of India, and the Assamese in particular, will not fight this election from a defensive position. They will fight with a free mind that we have no crisis of identity as of now. Of course, after 20 years, it is a different matter. So, this will be an election that the Assamese people will join with a free mind,” Sarma said.
The northeastern state accounts for 14 of the region’s 25 Lok Sabha seats. In the previous 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the ruling BJP and its allies won 18 parliamentary segments in the northeast, including 11 in Assam. In the 2024 general elections, voting in the state will be conducted on April 19, 26, and May 7.
The nationwide polling will be held in seven phases: April 19, 26, May 7, 13, 20, 25, and June 1. The counting of votes for all 543 constituencies will be done on June 4. The BJP, which is seeking a third consecutive term, will be challenged by I.N.D.I.A, formed to deny the saffron party a hattrick of wins.
(With ANI inputs)