Citizenship bill not an issue, BJP stitches alliance in North East

New Delhi, Mar 13: Keeping aside all speculations over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 aside, the BJP has managed to forge an alliance in the Northeast for the upcoming elections.

In a Facebook post early on Wednesday, party general secretary and Northeast incharge Ram Madhav announced that after a "hectic day of parlays" on Tuesday, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had reached an electoral understanding with the major parties in the region - NPP, NDPP, AGP and BPF.

"Sustained negotiations at Dimapur and Guwahati with different senior leaders like N Rio, CM, Nagaland; Sarbananda Sonowal, CM, Assam; Conrad Sangma, CM, Meghalaya, Sh Biren Singh, CM, Manipur; Pema Khandu, CM, Arunachal Pradesh and Himanta Biswa Sarma, Convenor, NEDA in the company of other leaders have finally sealed the alliance and electoral understanding between the BJP and all major parties in the North East," Madhav said.

"The BJP, NPP, NDPP, AGP and BPF will fight together in Assam, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh with the mission of defeating Congress party at the hustings.," he said.

In Tripura, the BJP will fight the elections together with IPFT, our alliance partner.

In Sikkim, our alliance will be with SKM, the main Opposition party.

While the Opposition is still talking and talking about Mahagatbandhan, we already have ours in place in the North East and the rest of the country. The NDA is a much stronger coalition today than before.

This alliance has the potential of winning not less than 22 out of 25 seats in the region and playing an important role in seeing Modiji as the PM once again.

In the Northeast, the BJP is in power in Assam, Manipur, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh, and a coalition partner in the National Peoples' Party-led government in Meghalaya and the National Democratic Progressive Party-led government in Nagaland.

The BJP has been facing opposition in the Northeast over the Citizenship Bill, with the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) walking out of the alliance over the issue. The AGP had expressed reservations over the Bill, saying it would make the Assam Accord "meaningless".

The BJP and it's allies had won 11 seats out of 25 in the region in 2014 Lok Sabha polls.