GUWAHATI: Strengthening the suspicion of its alleged tacit understanding with the Congress, Assam’s minority-based All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) on Monday announced that it will contest in only three of the state’s 14 Parliamentary seats.
The AIUDF, which is led by perfume baron and Lok Sabha member Maulana Badruddin Ajmal, will contest in Dhubri, Barpeta and Karimganj seats, all currently held by the party.
The candidates in the fray are Ajmal, Radheshyam Biswas and Hafiz Rafikul Islam. Ajmal and Biswas are MPs of Dhubri and Karimganj respectively. The AIUDF ignored Ajmal’s brother Sirajuddin, the Barpeta MP. He allegedly remained aloof from the voters in the constituency and as such, there was a growing anger among them.
The AIUDF’s decision to contest just three seats comes a day after the BJP’s allegation that the minority-based party had an unholy alliance with the Congress.
“The Congress has no idea about which direction they want to steer the country to. The people do not know if they are fighting for India or for Pakistan. We are very sure that they have entered into an unholy alliance with the AIUDF,” BJP leader Ram Madhav had alleged.
He had said: “We are confident that the people will reject this unholy alliance…The opposition does not have the courage and strength to face Prime Minister Narendra Modi. That is precisely the reason why they have formed alliances wherever possible”.
The AIUDF on Monday rubbished the BJP’s charge.
“We haven’t aligned with the Congress. Had it not been so, the Congress wouldn’t have hurried to announce the name of its candidate for Karimganj. They would have waited,” AIUDF spokesman Aminul Islam argued.
He said the AIUDF’s decision to contest in three seats was to thwart the division of “secular” votes.
The AIUDF holds sway in Dhubri, Barpeta and Karimganj. Most of its 13 MLAs were elected from the three constituencies in the 2016 Assam elections.
The party chief Ajmal has been always open to a grand alliance of non-BJP parties but no political party, including the Congress, officially endorsed the idea.
Recently, three-time former Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi had outright dismissed the idea of the Congress’s pre-poll alignment with the AIUDF by saying, “The Congress cannot go for an illicit marriage. I personally favour a love marriage instead of an illicit marriage. I will not endorse an alliance between the two parties”.