Eyeing the Bodoland pie

Peace sells in a region scarred by decades of extremism. In 2003, the Government of India, the Government of Assam, and the Bodo Liberation Tigers signed a peace accord, which led to the creation of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC), an autonomous body to to govern the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR). The BTC was established as a political alternative to the demand for a separate Bodoland state.

The Bodoland People’s Front (BPF), a political party formed largely by members of the disbanded Bodo Liberation Tigers, ruled the BTR until December 2020. The end of its 17-year rule was partly because of another peace accord in January 2020 and partly because of the BPF’s divorce from its “big brother”, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The 2020 peace pact, catalysed by the influential All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU), was between the government and all the factions of another set of extremists — the National Democratic Front of Boroland. Pramod Boro, then the ABSU president and one of the key architects of the peace process, became the president of the United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL), the BPF’s long-term rival across the BTR.

The BJP, claiming to have brought peace to the north-east and paved the way for development, found in Mr. Boro’s image as a peace broker an opportunity to penetrate the areas under the tribal council where mainstream parties had little or no traction after 2003.

The BPF, dumped by the BJP, became the single-largest party by winning 17 of the 40 seats in the 2020 BTC polls. The UPPL, which won 12 seats, and the BJP, with nine, formed the government in the BTC along with a regional party that won one seat.

The Congress managed to win one seat and became the BPF’s short-term ally in February 2021. Over the next few years, defections from the BPF and Congress saw the UPPL and BJP’s tally increase to 15 and 14 seats, respectively.

The UPPL-led government in the BTC, allegedly rendered bankrupt by the BPF, exuded inclusivity in the rebuilding process across the BTR, which had a history of conflicts between the dominant Bodos, the largest plains tribe in the north-east, and a majority of the 19 non-Bodo communities, including the Assamese and the Bengali-speaking Muslims. Mr. Boro’s outreach was underlined by the Bhutan-inspired Bodoland Happiness Mission launched in 2024 and a community-based road map for development of the smallest of communities. According to him, the post-2020 BTR was vastly different from the pre-2020 BTR, ruled by instability and division along community lines. The UPPL has been banking on the “unprecedented” peace and associated development across the five-district BTR for a second term, either on its own or in an alliance.

There is apparently no strain in the ties between the UPPL and the BJP, but the latter has often indicated it could befriend the BPF again. The BJP, reportedly miffed by a less pliant leadership in the BTC unlike its counterparts in the two other tribal councils – Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council and North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council – under the Sixth Schedule in Assam, has decided to go it alone in the BTC polls, likely to be held by September-end. If that is not enough, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma began campaigning in the BTR extensively, claiming that the region was reaping the benefits of peace because of the BJP. He also said that the non-tribal communities would have nothing to fear in Bodoland till he was alive. “Remember that you are safe and have equal rights because the BJP is here, and there will be no second-class citizens,” he said.

Bodo organisations did not react to the Chief Minister’s alleged bid to polarise the BTR electorate on ethnic lines. However, the All-Assam Tribal Sangha condemned State BJP president Dilip Saikia’s assurance to non-Bodos that the laws specific to the autonomous councils would be amended for them to purchase land in the tribal blocks and belts. The BJP’s approach to the BTC polls indicates a design to weaken the hold of its smaller allies in specific areas. This is evident from its oblique advice to another regional ally, the Asom Gana Parishad, to stay away from the BTC polls.

The Congress and other non-National Democratic Alliance parties have slammed the BJP’s “divisive” campaign as a show of desperation to win the BTC polls.