As many as 26 opposition parties, including the Congress, have forged themselves into an alliance named ‘INDIA’.
In Assam, though, the Congress began to combine opposition forces much before the formation of ‘INDIA’.
The state leaders of the grand old party were successful in bringing together 12 opposition parties under a single umbrella.
The joint opposition forum included Left parties, Sivasagar MLA Akhil Gogoi’s Raijor Dol, former All Assam Students Union (AASU) leader Lurinjyoti Gogoi’s Asom Jatiya Parishad (AJP), and others.
But the joint forum lacks a prominent player in Assam politics – Badruddin Ajmal’s All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF).
Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress and Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) were also not given a place in the opposition forum.
Following the announcement of “INDIA”, the situation has changed to a great extent. Both Trinamool Congress and AAP are now constituents of the opposition alliance but the AIUDF is still out of the alliance.
Aminul Islam, an MLA from Mankachar in Assam and general secretary of AIUDF told IANS: “One of the key players in the alliance, Nitish Kumar met us in Patna a few weeks ago. Our leader Badruddin Ajmal was also present there. As per Bihar Chief Minister’s advice, we also met Sharad Pawar in Mumbai. They were very eager to take us into the alliance. But it is true that we were not invited to the meetings that happened later.”
Since its inception in 2005, AIUDF has been a prominent factor in Assam politics. In the 2011 assembly election, they became the primary opposition party in the state with 18 MLAs.
In 2016, the number of seats dropped a little to 13. However, in the last assembly polls, Badruddin Ajmal’s party managed to win 16 seats. Later, one of its MLAs resigned from the party and was re-elected on a BJP ticket.
Out of 14 MP seats in Assam, in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, AIUDF won three seats. The tally decreased in the 2019 general election and only Badruddin Ajmal himself could win the party bastion Dhubri seat.
In the 2021 assembly election, Congress and AIUDF forged a grand alliance to oust the BJP from power in Assam. The combination won more than 40 seats but failed to attain a magic figure in the 126-member legislative assembly.
The relations between the two parties deteriorated further and after a hitch in Rajya Sabha polls over cross-voting in favour of a BJP candidate, Congress denounced the alliance.
Aminul Islam said: “It was the Congress MLAs who voted for the BJP. They even announced that the traitors would be punished. It is more than one and half years, the Congress could not take any action against its MLAs who voted for the BJP candidate.”
He further said that at present Assam has nearly 40 per cent of the Muslim population. Congress has lost its base among many communities, like ‘tea garden people’, Ahom, etc. So, they want to bank on the Muslim votes. But minority people have full faith in Badruddin Ajmal and they will vote for the AIUDF only.
According to Islam, Congress has been trying hard to mislead Muslim voters by saying that AIUDF is a B team of the BJP.
“We are completely sure that Congress would fail in their tactics. Congress has forged alliances with parties most of which have no representations either in the assembly or Parliament barring a few. These small players cannot help them to win seats… rather we firmly believe that AIUDF will send at least three MPs to Lok Sabha next year,” he added.
The AIUDF MLA also mentioned that their party was an ally of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and they would support “INDIA” after the Lok Sabha polls. He remarked: “We are against BJP and cannot join the NDA. So, we have decided to support the opposition alliance.”
However, the opposition leader in the Assam assembly and senior Congress MLA Debabrata Saikia said: “It is AIUDF leaders who are misleading the people. They cannot win seats. Our state president Bhupen Bora for the last one and a half years repeated the same stand that AIUDF cannot be accommodated in the opposition alliance. They tried to be a part of ‘INDIA’, but no one paid any heed to them. They went to Patna and other places and they had to return empty handed.”
He also made it very clear that no Congress leaders contacted AIUDF to join the opposition alliance.
“When they went to Patna and Mumbai, I said strongly that if Nitish Kumar or Sharad Pawar think that they need AIUDF either in Bihar or Maharashtra to accumulate votes for them, they can have an alliance with them in their states. But Assam Congress believes that AIUDF is a non-entity and so there is no need to include Badruddin Ajmal in the opposition fold,” Saikia added.
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