New Delhi, March 18 -- In a development that has shaken the Congress party's electoral prospects in Assam, veteran politician and Nagaon Lok Sabha MP Pradyut Bordoloi formally joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday, a day after submitting his resignation from the grand old party. The switch was formalised in the presence of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and state BJP president Dilip Saikia, dealing a fresh and consequential blow to Congress at a particularly vulnerable moment - barely three weeks before the state goes to polls.

The timing could hardly be worse. With assembly elections scheduled for 9 April, Bordoloi's exit strips Congress of one of its three sitting Members of Parliament from the state. The other two -...