GUWAHATI
A record byelection victory for its candidate in the Sidli Assembly constituency has boosted the confidence of the United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL) ahead of the elections to Assam’s Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) in 2025.
The win has also made the UPPL, one of two regional allies of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Assam, believe that its “peace-driven development model” has more takers to help it retain power in the BTC straddling 40 constituencies.
Election results 2024: Maharashtra | Jharkhand | Bypolls
The Sidli contest was a major challenge for UPPL candidate Nirmal Kumar Brahma. He not only had to retain the seat vacated by Joyanta Basumatary but win convincingly enough to give a message that the party was better than its rivals for the multi-ethnic Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) that the BTC governs.
Mr. Basumatary vacated Sidli after winning the Kokrajhar Lok Sabha seat for the UPPL earlier this year. His victory ended a two-term drought for any registered political party in Kokrajhar.
Mr. Brahma not only defeated Suddho Kumar Basumatary of the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) but his margin of victory – 37,016 votes – was one of the highest for the 12 Assembly constituencies across BTC ever. Nine of these seats are with NDA (UPPL eight and BJP one) while the BPF, which ruled the BTC for 17 years until the UPPL assumed power in 2020, has three.
UPPL president Pramod Boro, who is also the Chief Executive Member of the BTC, attributed the Sidli victory to the dividends the party reaped for ensuring “unprecedented” peace across the BTR.
Mr. Boro was one of the architects of the BTR Accord the Centre signed with now-disbanded extremist groups and the All Bodo Students’ Union in January 2020. He said the pact ended decades of violence, first for the quest for statehood for the Bodo tribal people and then through the “reign of fear” under the BPF.
“There was a time when people were afraid of setting foot on the BTR. Today, a peaceful atmosphere prevails in the region. People supported us after they were convinced that only the UPPL-BJP coalition can ensure permanent peace,” Mr. Boro told The Hindu after the party’s Sidli win.
“The voters realised that supporting the UPPL and BJP will strengthen democracy and ensure development in all sectors riding on the peace model we have created,” he said.
He admitted that the UPPL was initially not able to convince people that it had a workable model. “More and more people started believing in us and our policies and they found it was diametrically opposite to the BPF’s style of dominating and cheating them and indulging in corruption,” Mr. Boro said.
He said the UPPL and BJP have been working in synchronicity toward achieving the common goal of developing the BTR through peace and respect for some 20 divergent communities, many of who weathered ethnic clashes in the past.
“The Sidli result has fuelled our hopes of doing very well in the 2025 BTC elections. I feel the by-election result will help us win most of the 40 seats in the council,” he said.
Mr. Boro also predicted a sweep for the BJP, UPPL, and AGP in the 2026 Assembly elections in Assam because of the leadership of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.
