Congress mulls alliance with AIUDF to fight BJP in Assam

Buoyed by the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) recent humiliating poll defeat in the Indian state of Bihar, Congress is now trying to strike a political deal with the minority-dominated All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) to prevent a ‘saffron’ surge in the state.

Despite the debacle in Bihar, Congress leaders in Assam admit that BJP’s influence in the state is constantly growing.

But the success of the convergence of anti-BJP forces in Bihar gave them some hope.

The ruling Congress, which has formed government for three consecutive terms in the state is now trying hard to rope in AIUDF chief Maulana Badruddin Ajmal to form an anti-BJP alliance.

Ajmal floated the AIUDF in 2006 on an anti-Congress plank and does not share a very good rapport with Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi.

But political compulsion has forced the Congress to turn to Ajmal as he wields considerable influence among the minority voters, who were considered a strong Congress vote bank before the emergence of the AIUDF.    

In the 2011 assembly elections, AIUDF won 18 seats to become the largest opposition party in Assam.

Sources in the Congress said, even Chief Minister Gogoi's political advisors had suggested to him that they would have to take Ajmal's help to fight BJP.

Gogoi, who had not too long ago dismissively asked, “Who is Badruddin?,” is now frequently sending emissaries to hold ‘back-channel parleys” with him to stitch up a Bihar-type grand alliance.    

Even Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, who had attended the oath taking ceremony of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Patna on Friday, met Ajmal there and exchanged pleasantries.

BJP on the other hand described the move as opportunism and claimed such alliance would have no impact in Assam.

Assam BJP General Secretary Vijay Gupta said that those who were talking of the ‘grand alliance’ were opportunists and had no interest in serving the people.

"This (possible grand alliance) will have no effect on the 2016 Assam polls. Voters here are aware of the situation and they want a change.

As far as AIUDF chief Ajmal is concerned, he is a communal leader. He is spreading the poison of communalism in Assam. If Congress decides to align itself with Ajmal, it will be a misfortune for the people of Assam and the Congress will prove, once and for all, that it too is a communal party," he said.

Notwithstanding their apparent show of brave face, BJP and its ideologues are busy devising strategies to counter any such alliance.

Political observers say in the event of a Congress-AIUDF alliance, the issue of “illegal influx” from Bangladesh would become a major political plank.

Already Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which is a guiding light of BJP, started raising the bogey of “illegal infiltrations.”

RSS senior leader Indresh Kumar alleged that the ‘Bangladeshi vote bank’ would one day “spell disaster” for ruling Congress.

The RSS leader alleged that the Gogoi government had been using the “Bangladeshis as a vote bank since a very long time.”

This time too Gogoi was “befriending the Bangladeshis” to grab power, he went on to add.

A former confidante of Badruddin Ajmal, senior advocate and social worker, Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Choudhury said that a Bihar-like joint front against BJP would be successful in Assam too.                      

Choudhury pointed out that in the minority-dominated pockets, if Muslim votes got divided between Congress, AIUDF or any other party, the BJP would be the ultimate beneficiary.

But for a Congress-AIUDF grand alliance, the ruling party needs to factor in the impact of such a move in Hindu-dominated Upper Assam where Ajmal and his party were by and large perceived as “fundamentalists.”

Even some Congress leaders warned that such alliance could also be counterproductive as Congress-AIUDF alliance might polarise Hindu votes in favour of BJP.

But with barely five months left for Assam to go to poll, political parties know they have not much time left to formulate their strategies.