Political parties flexing muscles for coming Lok Sabha polls

: Special Correspondent
SILCHAR, Jan 4: Ayaram Gayaram political syndrome is not a new phenomenon in the Indian political scenario. This generally surfaces on the eve of elections.

Though LS polls are still far away, its ramblings can well be perceived. Political parties and their leaders are girding up their loins to beat and outwit their rivals with all imaginable game- plans.
To begin with, as a strategy, it is to influence the supporters of one another’s camps and lure them to the other side of the fence by hook or by crook.

The most vulnerable among them are from the rural areas. Congress, the oldest organization, is seasoned in upsetting the apple card of its opponents, most particularly its diehard rival, BJP.
During the last four days, there has been a sort of upmanship between the two political parties.
When 500 BJP workers from the three blocks of Palangghat, Borojalenga and Narsingpur under Dholai constituency joined Congress on last Thursday in the party office here, there was jubilation in Congress Bhavan.

Congress district president Karanendu Bhattacharya described the event as a great victory for them and the culmination of the hard and sustained campaign of leaders and workers to strengthen the party from the grass root level.

There was more of drama when in the midst of the welcoming process to admit the BJP deserters, the ebullient and maverick Minister of Excise and Border Area Development Gautom Roy made a surprise visit to Congress Bhawan and using his own characteristic rhetoric, eulogized the party leaders and activists at the middle and lower rungs to woo the cadres of the other party.

This, he said, was an indication of how Congress was gaining from strength to strength. It was also the manifestation of unity in the party.

If the Congress could indulge in brickmanship, how could BJP remain silent. The saffron party reacted by drawing in its fold, 68 Congress workers of Palangghat and Rukini gaon panchayats under Dholai constituency which was first targeted by the INC.

These Congress supporters joined BJP in the presence of Dholai MLA Parimal Shuklabaidya in the party office of Dholai. While admitting themselves in BJP, the newcomers cited several grounds for deserting their parent body.

In their own confession, they cited how they were disillusioned and disenchanted by the misrule and corruptions of Congress.

A buoyed Shuklabaidya welcoming them, said they would be given the opportunity to work for strengthening the secular and nationalist forces.

He hit back at Congress, accusing it of letting terror grow and its failure to provide security to common people.

This development has not come as surprise since both the rival parties have the tradition to go for such gimmickry before elections and this also provides them the best opportunity to fire salvo at each other to heat up the political firmament. source: sentinel assam