Eying 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam, the Congress has already started its preparations for next year’s general elections, holding discussions with 11 opposition parties, including the Left, and local organisations.
AICC General Secretary in-charge of Assam, Jitendra Singh, said on Thursday that the Congress President (Mallikarjun Kharge) and the AICC have decided that the party will not have any alliance with the AIUDF.
The Congress along with many other parties, including the AIUDF, had formed a ‘Mahagathbandhan’ (grand alliance) and fought the 2021 Assembly elections in Assam together. But soon after polls, the Congress snapped its ties with the Badruddin Ajmal-led AIUDF, a Muslim-based party which currently has 13 MLAs in Assam.
Assam Congress President Bhupen Bora had said that they would check the division of votes in next year’s Lok Sabha polls in Assam, as the BJP always gets electoral mileage due to the division of votes among the non-BJP parties.
In the 2019 parliamentary polls, of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam, BJP had won nine, Congress three, while the AIUDF and an Independent candidate (Naba Kumar Sarania) won one seat each.