In Assam, the Congress party has allied with All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), to get journalist and anti-CAA activist Ajit Kumar Bhuyan get elected from the state in Rajya Sabha. It must be noted that the AIUDF is a party which counts primarily the illegal Bangladeshi immigrants among its voter base, with significant political clout in lower Assam, the area where Muslim immigrants are now in majority.
AIUDF is the third largest party in Assam, having 14 seats in 126 seats of legislature of the state. His party bagged 13 percent of the total votes in the 2016 assembly election against 41.9 percent of BJP and 31 percent of BJP.
For the 2021 assembly election, it is being anticipated that Congress and AIUDF will go into alliance, as Himata Biswa Sarma, the senior most BJP leader in Assam and Northeast suggested after he left Congress. Tarun Gogoi, former CM of the state who ruled it for 15 years, has already hinted about the alliance.
“Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is greater evil than Badruddin Ajmal-led All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF)” said Gogoi. “We are planning a joint effort to find out a common candidate so that we can elect one member to the Rajya Sabha. In Assam, the Congress and AIUDF are the opposition parties,” he added.
Sarma slammed that secret understanding between two parties and said that the two parties have become protector of illegal Bangladeshis. “It is very clear that the Congress and the AIUDF have an understanding for seats. Former chief minister Tarun Gogoi wants to ensure that his son Gaurav Gogoi retains the Kaliabor constituency and the AIUDF has not put up a candidate there,” he said.
Gogoi has already said that he wants an alliance with AIUDF and suggested that they could easily defeat BJP if both come together. “Today, the situation has changed and we want an alliance. In the last Assembly election, we had also talked, but it didn’t work out. Now the relation has been gradually improving. Talks are going on to put up a joint candidate. We feel that the BJP is greater evil than these people. So we want to defeat the BJP first for their communal and divisive politics,” said Gogoi.
Sarma, an ex-Congress leader who left the party because Rahul Gandhi has more time for his dog than him, is leading the BJP’s campaign for the next assembly election. Taking on Ajit Bhuyan, Sarma said that he did anti-CAA andolan for Rajya Sabha seat. “It has come to light that many of the intellectuals were actually involved in the CAA Andolans because of their greed for the Rajya Sabha seat. It seems like their eyes were fixed on the Rajya Sabha seats,” he said.
Previously, AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal wanted Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to contest from Assam and he suggested that she could be fielded as Congress-AIUDF alliance candidate. However, the Congress high command decided to not field Priyanka Gandhi Vadra for Rajya Sabha, for reasons known only to Gandhis.
Therefore, the alliance fielded Bhuyan as the candidate. However, after it became clear that Congress and AIUDF will ally for the election, Himanta Biswa Sarma’s campaign against them became more vociferous. If Badruddin Ajmal campaigns for the Congress party, even the parents of the opposition leaders will vote for BJP, said Sarma.
Congress is ready to go to any extent to come to power. The party has allied with AIUDF, against which it campaigned for decades, in order to come to power. If the alliance comes to power, Congress-AIUDF might perhaps legalize all the Bangladeshi immigrants, and in fact, Ajmal might bring more Bangladeshis to Assam in order to increase clout in the state.