How The Northeast Was Won?

Himanta Biswa Sarma is the man of the moment for the BJP. The ex-Congressman’s man-management skills were key in the party’s sweep of the hill states

- Kaushik Deka

Nearly six months before Tripura went to the polls, a senior leader of the Indi genous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT) party was facing a personal crisis—his son was diagnosed with a heart ailment and he needed money for an operation. Assam finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who was travelling in the state preparing for the BJP’s poll campaign, got to know about the IPFT leader’s dilemma. Even though he did not know the leader personally, Sarma dialled renowned heart specialist Dr Devi Shetty and arranged for free treatment at the Narayana Hrudayalaya in Guwahati.

The young boy was cured and Sarma earned a friend for life. In January, when Sarma was cobbling together an alliance between the BJP and the IPFT (despite opposition from senior leaders on both sides), his new friend in the IPFT played a key role in making it happen. Till then, it had seemed an impossible task—the IPFT has been demanding a separate state for tribals or ‘Twipraland’ while the BJP is opposed to any division of the state. “Politics is all about the management of contradictions,” says Sarma, who persuaded the IPFT to drop their demand before the elections. After the election results, the IPFT revived it, but Sarma remains unperturbed. “In Assam, we have been in an alliance with the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) for two years now. They have also been demanding a separate Bodoland. Such issues can be sorted out through talks,” he says.