On March 10, the Assam units of 10 political parties held a joint meeting as a first step towards an alliance to take on the BJP and its partners in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. It was called by the Assam Congress and the parties which joined it were the state units of the NCP, RJD, CPI and CPI (M-L) and regional parties Jatiya Dal, Raijor Dal, Assam Jatiya Parishad and Liberal Democratic Party. Assam PCC chief Bhupen Borah, who is leading the effort to stitch together the alliance, speaks to The Indian Express about their plans, and the lessons from the recent Assembly elections in the three Northeast states. Excerpts: Apart from the nine parties which joined the meeting held by you last week, are you working on getting other parties on board as well? BORAH: There are three other parties that people think can be brought on board. Of these, we do not maintain any connection with the AIUDF. When it comes to the Aam Aadmi Party and Trinamool Congress, we are hoping there will be some understanding by the Congress with their leaders at the national level. If that is arrived at a national level, we do not have any difficulties at the state level. If that doesn’t happen at the national level, then that will be a difficulty for us. As for the NCP, RJD, CPI and CPI(M), the Congress has had good relations with them since UPA-I. The regional parties from Assam which we called, we had contested the last by-elections with them. We will follow whatever stand the AICC takes at the national level with regard to the AAP and TMC. The last time the Congress stitched together this kind of an alliance before the 2021 Assam Assembly polls, the AIUDF was your partner. Why such a strong stand now against partnering with it now? BORAH: There are many reasons for this, but I will just tell you a few. During the Rajya Sabha elections, their MLAs did cross-voting. Two of our MLAs also cross-voted and we expelled them. But their MLAs too did, and the BJP got nine extra votes. The AIUDF did not take any action. The story was similar in the Presidential election. Then in the Vidhan Sabha, in Parliament, outside the Vidhan Sabha, they are always busy praising the Chief Minister (BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma). They call him the best Chief Minister. It is a syndicate. They don’t speak against the government. The polarisation that the BJP does is a joint strategy between them. For the polarisation to be complete, you need two parties. The BJP and RSS have not been able to divide Hindus and Muslims in some states. Today, the BJP can’t be successful in Chhattisgarh, it is not able to succeed in South India because parties which polarise Muslims are not there. They (the AIUDF) make provocative statements, which we believe they do at the behest of the BJP. So it is not possible to sit together at a table and form an alliance with a party which is hand-in-glove with the BJP. We recently had elections in three North-Eastern states. Looking at the results in these, what is your assessment of how things are looking for the Congress and its allies in the region? BORAH: If we had been more careful from early on, there was a full possibility of us forming the government in Tripura, with the TIPRA Motha, CPI(M) and Congress coming together. Then, if you look at the vote share and number of MLAs, you see that the BJP has not formed the government with the popular mandate. The BJP has directly benefited from the division of anti-BJP votes. If we look at what we call the anti-BJP parties, in the case of Meghalaya, the TMC and Congress combined vote percentage comes to 29%. And the leaders of the two parties, Mukul Sangma and Vincent Pala, were together in earlier elections, because of which we had a Congress government. That the TMC does not have a future in the Northeast has become clear with these elections. The ex-Congress leaders who left the party for various reasons. in Assam also, we are working on getting these leaders back to the party. We hope that if some understanding is formed, we will be able to counter the BJP together. So how do you plan to mobilise this anti-BJP alliance over the course of the next year? BORAH: On April 9, we will have a joint political meeting of all the 10 parties. District- and block-level representatives of all parties will be present. We will work out the plan for the next one year there.
