Last week, a 16-party Opposition alliance stitched together in Assam to take on the BJP collapsed after the Congress refused to agree to a joint candidate of the front for the coming bypoll to the Behali Assembly seat. The Congress had got four of the five Assembly seats going for bypolls as part of the arrangement, but refused the CPI (ML) candidate picked by the Asom Sonmilito Morcha for Behali. Since then, Assam Congress chief Bhupen Bora has resigned as president of the Morcha. In an interview with The Indian Express, Asom Sonmilito Morcha general secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoi, belonging to the Asom Jatiya Parishad (AJP), speaks about the future of the alliance, which was meant to last till the 2026 Assembly elections, and what the exit of the Congress means: Did you see the Congress move coming? We never anticipated something like this because our primary objective was defeating the BJP in 2026. We were working together to ensure that the Opposition vote did not get divided. The sudden behaviour by the Congress in the run-up to the by-election has created an unexpected situation. (But) We believe that unity is more important. In Assam we can see that even the party which is in power (the BJP) has shared seats (with its regional allies UPPL and AGP), because that’s how unity works. Now if one party wants to contest all five seats by itself, what is the meaning of an alliance? One of our alliance partners said that they wanted the seat because they have a percentage of votes there. Even if their vote share by itself was not enough, the idea of an alliance is all allies coming together to make that victory possible. This is the Congress’s short-sightedness. They lack the visionary outlook they should have, and it is their weakness and also their ego as a 150-year-old party which was in power for a long time. Their arrogance has created this environment… They kept saying that the CPI(ML) candidate was weak. But we have not commented on what the Congress’s Sidli or Dholai candidate is like… Internal democracy should not be touched. What is the road forward for the alliance now? We are continuing our alliance even without the Congress. This will lead to a triangular competition, which is something we had wanted to avoid… If they were not able to give even one seat (in a bypoll), how will they manage 126 (Assembly) seats in 2026. We have to prepare ourselves for 2026 and we have to prepare for the worst-case scenario. Can there be a meaningful Opposition forum in Assam without the Congress? It can definitely be there. It has happened in other states. There is a strong regional force in Assam. There are a lot of regional voters who, due to lack of options, went to the BJP. There is a wave in favour of regionalism among the people, mainly among the indigenous people. In 2021, we (the AJP) contested nearly 90 seats and in around 30, we won at least 10,000 votes and in many of these, our votes went up to 50,000. So people have this emotion, but how we awaken this emotion among the people, how we win their trust, that is something our alliance will have to work on. Is there any possibility of tying up again with the Congress before the Assembly elections, which are still one-and-a-half years away? We can’t say that as of now because they are the ones who broke the alliance… and don’t want the alliance now… If the Congress can win by itself, then surely they don’t need an alliance at all. But that’s not the situation in Assam. Look at Haryana where the Opposition vote was divided in four directions; that was advantage BJP. Is that an advantage the Congress wants to give the BJP? If somebody discusses specifically, then I don’t see any reason why they could not have given up that one seat. They should have maintained that goodwill, they can’t keep harping about their own winnability.
