Guwahati : AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal on Friday welcomed the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ led by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, and urged the Congress in Assam and the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC to join the opposition grouping to defeat the ruling BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Ajmal, a Lok Sabha MP from Dhubri constituency, said Kumar and leaders of the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ will visit Assam next month to explore possibilities of expanding the grouping. The Congress is a part of the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ in Bihar.
“When they will come, I hope that the Congress (in Assam) and Mamata Banerjee will join the ‘Mahagathbandhan’. Our common enemy is the BJP and together we will be able to defeat them in 2024,” he told reporters here.
Ajmal also sought to form an alliance again with its former ally Congress for the panchayat and Lok Sabha elections in Assam in order to defeat their “common enemy BJP”.
“Unless we are united, we cannot defeat the BJP. So, let us join hands again for defeating the BJP,” he said.
Reacting to Ajmal’s proposal, Assam Congress president Bhupen Kumar Borah said no such alliance will take place between the two opposition parties again in the future.
“We have been always saying that AIUDF is equally communal like the BJP. We will form an alliance with the people of Dhubri, but not with a trader,” he said referring to Ajmal’s perfume business.
Interestingly, the Congress on November 1 kick-started the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ in Assam from Dhubri district, Ajmal’s home turf, and plans to cover 834 km in the next 70 days.
Borah further said, “If an alliance takes place between the Congress and AIUDF, I will not be the president of the state Congress.”
Prior to the Assam Assembly elections in 2021, the Congress had formed a ‘Grand Alliance’ with AIUDF, BPF, CPI(M), CPI, CPI(ML), Anchalik Gana Morcha (AGM), RJD, Adivasi National Party (ANP) and Jimochayan (Deori) Peoples Party (JPP) to fight against the BJP-led NDA.
After facing defeat, the Congress in August last year broke the alliance with AIUDF.
The core committee of the state Congress also opted to break its association with the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF), while the CPI(M) said it only had a seat-sharing arrangement with the Congress and was not a part of any alliance. — PTI
