Countdown

January 5, 2001 -- At its national executive, BJP chief Bangaru Laxman attacks the AsomGana Parishad government for its failure to check militancy and infiltration from acrossthe Bangladesh border and holds it responsible for the growth of separatist forces inAssam.

February 27 -- In deference to the wishes of its state unit, Bangaru Laxman rules outan alliance with the AGP for the May 10 Assembly elections.

March 7 -- Going by the reasoning that the Congress must be kept out of power by anymeans, the BJP high command overrules the party's state unit on a poll alliance with theAGP. The state BJP leaders feel the AGP has lost popularity and the party should go italone. The AGP, at its last general conference, had termed the BJP communal.

April 3 -- Union Home Minister L.K.Advani meets AGP president and Chief MinisterPrafulla Kumar Mahanta to discuss the modalities of a poll alliance. The move is sparkedby the realisation that in case of a three-way contest between the Congress, AGP and BJP,the Congress stands to gain as the AGP and BJP share a common vote-bank in most of the 126constituencies.

In view of this, the CPI and CPI (M) -- members of the four-party ruling alliance inthe state, threaten to pull out while the Samajwadi Party rules out a poll alliance withthe AGP.

April 4 -- Alarmed by BJP's move, the state unit of the Congress identifies the CPIas a potential alliance partner.

April 10 -- The seat-sharing formula leaves BJP office-bearers in Assam angry. From theinitial demand of sharing 110 of the 126 seats equally, the BJP has just 34 seats. In 10more seats there would be "friendly" contests between AGP and BJP candidates.

April 13 -- Hiranya Bhattacharyya, president of the newly-formed Assam BJP, announcesthe party's decision to contest over 60 seats. Bhattacharyya quit the BJP earlier in theweek in protest against the alliance with the AGP.

BJP central leadership deputes vice-president Pyarelal Khandelwal, general secretaryNarendra Modi and general secretary in-charge of Assam, Sunil Shastri, to resolve thecrisis.

Assam Irrigation Minister Abdul Muhib Mazumdar resigns from the cabinet after his partyUnited People's Party of Assam merges with the Samajwadi Party. Mazumdar was the presidentof the erstwhile UPPA and the outfit became the third political party after the CPI andthe CPI (M) to withdraw from the four-party ruling alliance.

April 14 -- Congress defers announcing list of candidates to April 17 with the hope ofnetting dissidents from the BJP and AGP. The list was to be released on April 15.

April 16 -- AGP releases its list of candidates for 54 Assembly constituencies. Theparty would contest 79 seats, and leave 44 for the BJP. There would be friendly contestswith the BJP in 10 seats while the All-Bodo Students Union would support the AGP in 24seats. In turn, seven ABSU-backed candidates in lower Assam would be supported by the AGP.

The Samata Party announces it would contest 24 seats and appeals to both the AGP andBJP to support its candidates.

April 21 -- Assam Congress president Tarun Gogoi announces list of candidates at the residence of state unit general secretary Sarat Barkakoty to avoid hordes of disappointedparty men creating trouble. The state unit has been beset with factionalism overcandidates' selection with each of the 10 Congress parliamentarians demanding inclusion ofsupporters as official candidates.

The Congress had raised its application fee to Rs 10,000 from the usual Rs 5,000 andalso put a condition that those who did not get a nomination would get back only half the amount, rest going to the party fund. This step was taken to eliminate several aspiring candidates. And yet, it received over 3,000 applications.

As a result of the denial of tickets, a host of Congress top guns are likely to contest asIndependents.

Prominent Independent candidates are former cabinet minister in the previous Congressministry, Mukut Sarma, who filed his nomination papers for the Nagaon constituency.Sources close to Sarma allege that despite his wide popularity throughout theconstituency, the party high command dropped him and fielded Nripen Goswami whosecontribution has been in doubt.

Prafulla Kumar Mahanta files nomination papers for Dispur. He had earlier filed hisnomination for Barhampur.

April 25 -- Dhrama Kanta Roy, a local AGP leader of Abhoyapuri in Bongaigaon district shot dead by suspected ULFA militants. In another incident, militants gun down two AGP workers in Manikpur in the same district.

Internal squabbles in the Congress take a turn for the worse when a sectionof disgruntled Congress workers from west Guwahati resort to vandalism at the partyheadquarters, Rajiv Bhawan. About 200 angry workers, baying for the blood of certainsenior APCC leaders for "irregularities" in selection of party nominees, swoopdown on the headquarters forcing several senior Congressmen present there to run forsafety. At least two senior APCC leaders, general secretary, J.K. Jain and the politicalsecretary to the APCC president, Sirajul Hussain Saikia have a miraculous escape.

Apparently, as sources in the APCC inform, the party lodges a complaint with the police against Prasanta Malla Bujarbaruah, who was denied a party ticket, holding him responsible for the incident.

AICC leader and member of the central election committee Jagdish Tytler, who is campingin the city to manage the crisis in the Assam Congress, issues an appeal to allCongressmen, who have submitted nominations as Independents, to withdraw their nominationson or before April 26.

April 27 -- Police reveal militants plan to target among others chief minister Prafulla Mahanta and his wife Joyshree Goswami Mahanta before the polls.

April 29 -- AGP candidate from Barpeta constituency Kumar Dipak Das escapes attempt on his life.

April 30 -- Congress president Sonia Gandhi blames the AGP for the poor law and order situation in the state during a election rally in Tinsukia.

May 1 --Suspected ULFA militants kill the BJP candidate from Dibrugarh constituency, JayantaDutta, in Dibrugarh town. Dutta is attacked along with AGP's Dibrugarh district secretaryPrasanta Gogoi and another worker Biren Phukan inside a makeshift election office.

May 2 -- The Samata Party candidate from Rangia assembly seat, Dipak Kalita, shot at by suspected ULFA ultras in Kamrup district. Two AGP activists killed and another injured by suspected militants in Dhubri district while a Congress campaign office set ablaze in Nalbari district.

Assam Police claim to have received intelligence reports that ULFA and NDFB militants would continue to target AGP and BJP members in the run-up to the polls.

May 3 -- Suspected ULFA extremists storm an AGP election office in Nalbari district, killing three AGP workers and seriously injuring four others.The dead were identified as Madhav Choudhury, Abani Methi and Ruksan Ali. In another incident, militants lob a grenade inside a temporary AGP election office in Goalpara town injuring 14 party workers and two Home Guards.

The Election Commission rules out rescheduling or postponing elections in Assam in view of stepped up violence in the state.

May 4 -- Suspected ULFA militants storm AGP's party office in Bogorihatigaon, (Agriculture Minister Chandramohan Patowary's constituency) in Dharmapur killing six party workers and injuring an equal number. The Minister is on the ULFA's hitlist. In another incident, 17 AGP workers injured in a grenade attack by the ULFA in Goalpara.

Six political activists including a Congress worker killed and several party offices destroyed on poll related violence.

May 6 -- Congress candidate from Dudhnoi Assembly constituency Pranay Rabha escapes a bomb blast in party office in Goalpara district. Six Congress workers and three police officers injured in the explosion.

A day after Vajpayee accuses the Congress of being "hand-in-glove" with the ULFA, Congress general secretary and Assam observer Kamal Nath demands a CBI probe or a judicial inquiry by a Supreme Court judge within 24 hours into the "past and present links" of the militant outfit.

May 8 -- Abortive attack by ULFA on CRPF camp in Boko in Kamrup district.

May 9 --With less than 24 hours before polling, the AGP and BJP alliance rocked by an internal tussle. A day after Sushma Swaraj asks the AGP to vacate the upper Assam seat of Teok for the BJP candidate, BJP national vice-president Pyarelal Khandewal urges the AGP to withdraw its candidates from all seven seats where the two allies are engaged in 'friendly contests'.

An extraordinary security blanket thrown all over the state, even as one of the bloodiest election campaigns, in which 40 people were killed by suspected ULFA militants, ends.