Guwahati, February 16 Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Monday that the doors of the BJP were open for Bhupen Borah, hours after the former state Congress chief resigned from the party.
Sarma also said that if Borah joins the BJP, he would try to get him elected from a “safe seat”.
Borah sent his resignation letter to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge earlier in the day, dealing a blow to the party ahead of the Assam assembly polls.
In the letter, he claimed that he was being "ignored" by the party leadership and not being accorded his due in the state unit.
Borah was the president of the Assam Congress unit from 2021 to 2025, and was replaced by Gaurav Gogoi last year. He has been a two-time legislator in Assam.
Sarma said Borah was the “last Hindu leader” in the Congress without a family background – father or mother not occupying a ministerial post or being an MLA.
"His resignation carries the symbolic message that in the Congress, no one from a normal family can prosper. Congress does not give recognition to people from ordinary families, but I hail from an ordinary middle class family and the BJP has made me a chief minister. We stay opposite to the politics of blue blood," he told reporters here outside the assembly.
Sarma said he will go to Borah's residence tomorrow evening, and discuss his plans for the future.
Borah has “not contacted me or the BJP till now and at present, we are not in direct or indirect touch”, the CM said.
"If he wants to join the BJP, we will welcome him, but even if he does not want to do so, we extend our best wishes to him," Sarma said.
The chief minister said that he will visit Borah to be with him in his “difficult time”.
"I remember that both of us had joined the Congress around the same time. I left the party after 22 years and he lasted a little longer."
Sarma also claimed that Borah, in his resignation letter, accused the Congress of indulging in appeasement politics, and also mentioned that “Gaurav Gogoi could not give a proper clarification on his Pakistan visit”.
He asserted that there are ''two points in Borah's resignation letter that I have seen – one is Dhubri MP Rakibul Hussain is now controlling the Congress, and the reason for this was that Gaurav Gogoi will not contest from the Jorhat parliamentary constituency, but from Nagaon in the next polls for which he will need Hussain''.
Sarma claimed that Nagaon MP Pradyut Bora will leave the Congress in 2029, while Leader of the Opposition in Assam assembly Debabrata Saikia “will lose his Nazira seat”.
"I will then approach his mother and former minister Hemaprova Saikia to bring him into the BJP by 2027, as I am indebted to his father and former CM Hiteswar Saikia," he said.
Sarma also claimed that within five years, “'Azaan' will be called from the Congress office”, and only those Hindus will remain in the party whose father or mother were either ministers or MLAs, “while mutton and some other meat will be served in the office”.