From Our Correspondent
Guwahati: Alarmed by the rapid inroads made by the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) among its religious minority bastion in Assam, the ruling Congress is exploring all possible ways to win back Muslim voters from the AIUDF led by Badruddin Ajmal.
The AIUDF’s good performance in the recently held panchayat election in Muslims inhabited areas of Dhubri, Barpeta, Nagaon, Morigaon and Darrang districts have raised concern within the ruling Congress in view of the general election scheduled next year.
Given the political situation in the country as on date, Congress can’t ignore the preciousness of 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam. In the last election Congress won seven seats, BJP won four, AGP won one, AIUDF won one and Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) won one.
However, given the upsurge of AIUDF since the last general election, Congress may find it very tough to retain at least three – Barpeta, Karimganj, Kaliabor — out of the seven seats it is now holding in the next round of parliamentary polls.
While a section of the Congress party is advocating for an alliance with the AIUDF to check further erosion of the bastion among the religious minority voters, another section in the party is apprehensive that a tie-up with AIUDF which is seen as a political party basically for religious minority community, will have adverse impact on Congress’ poll prospects in eastern and northern Assam districts.
Meanwhile, to placate the religious minorities the Congress government in Assam has raised the budgetary allocation for development of the community to Rs 488 crore for the year 2013-14.
Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi is assuring to put up an all out efforts to set up a branch of Aligarh Muslim University in Assam too in response to the demand of the AIUDF.
Gogoi who did not used to see eye-to-eye to AIUDF president Badruddin Ajmal , has recently stated that no one can be considered enemy in politics for all the time and stated that Congress was not averse to have ties with the AIUDF provided the latter wanted it. He also stated that even Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi were in favour of ties with the AIUDF.