Agartala, Jan 15 (AHN) Assam Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday expressed confidence that the party would retain power in the state in the forthcoming Assembly elections scheduled to be held in the next few months.

After offering prayers at the Mata Tripura Sundari temple at Udaipur in Tripura’s Gomati district, Sarma said that the poll dates for the Assam Legislative Assembly elections would be announced in February this year and, considering the work done by the BJP government, he was confident that the party would return to power with a thumping majority.

He said that if elections were held today, the results would definitely be in favour of the BJP. However, Sarma noted that politics is unpredictable and that making any forecast about election results could be premature. Nonetheless, he asserted that the BJP is in a very strong position in Assam at present.

The two key issues on which the elections would be fought in Assam would be development and identity, the Chief Minister told the media. Sarma said that the BJP had fulfilled 100 per cent of the promises made to the people in its previous election manifesto.

The Assam Chief Minister also said that his government had provided jobs to 1.60 lakh youths over the past five years and that eligible candidates now get employment without any malpractice or corruption.

He claimed that his government had reclaimed nearly two lakh bighas of land that were allegedly under the possession of illegal Bangladeshi settlers. Sarma also expressed displeasure over the West Bengal government’s alleged failure to take strong action against infiltration from Bangladesh.

He said that the West Bengal government was not contributing adequately to the national effort to curb illegal infiltration from across the Bangladesh border. According to him, Assam and Tripura have been taking swift action to arrest infiltrators from Bangladesh, but similar efforts were not being witnessed in West Bengal.

Earlier on Thursday afternoon, upon his arrival at Maharaja Bir Bikram Airport in Agartala, Sarma was received by Tripura BJP President Rajib Bhattacharjee, Transport Minister Sushanta Chowdhury, and BJP leader Bipin Debbarma. BJP sources said that Sarma may hold meetings with state BJP leaders later on Thursday night.