Journalism of Courage
The deteriorating relationship between the Congress and the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) came to a head on Wednesday as senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh accused AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal of being a “mouthpiece of the BJP”. The two parties contested the Assam Assembly elections together in 2021 but have been at loggerheads since then.
Ramesh’s strong comments came days after Ajmal said the AIUDF was part of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), but took swipes at Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) president Bhupen Kumar Borah and All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge of Congress Jitendra Singh Alwar, both of whom have, in the past few months, alleged that the AIUDF and BJP have an understanding with each other.
Earlier this week, Ajmal said Borah “has no brains” and accused Alwar of selling Congress MLAs’ votes to BJP nominees in last year’s Rajya Sabha and presidential polls. “He (Jitendra Singh) is saying that the AIUDF is the BJP’s B-team … If AICC in Delhi says we are not with them, then that has some weight. But he doesn’t know, there are 24 parties from different states which are part of the UPA and we are one of them … The places we can reach, they can’t even enter, they are not even MPs, they will need passes.”
In the Rajya Sabha elections last April, the BJP and its ally UPPL won the two seats at stake from Assam. The BJP-led alliance’s victory, despite not having the numbers for the second seat, indicated that at least seven Opposition MLAs broke ranks to vote for the BJP. After that, a war of words erupted between the two Opposition parties, which had fielded a joint candidate, and Assam Leader of Opposition Debabrata Saikia of the Congress sending a legal notice to AIUDF legislator Karim Uddin Barbhuiya for allegedly accusing a section of Congress MLAs of cross-voting.
After the elections, the Congress had alleged that five AIUDF MLAs had “entered” Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s residence at 6 am, insinuating that they had voted for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
A similar blame game played out during the Presidential polls when half of the Opposition ranks voted for NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu, the incumbent President. But the Congress conceded at the time that some of its MLAs were also among those who cross-voted.
On Wednesday, Ramesh lashed out at Ajmal and said his comments about Borah and Alwar were “most unacceptable and bogus”.
“Shaken by the extraordinary success of Shri Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra as well as that of Bharat Jodo Yatra, Assam, the Chief Minister of Assam and Shri Ajmal have mounted this latest attack. Shri Ajmal is nothing but a mouthpiece for the BJP like some other parties like the AIMIM. He has nothing whatsoever to do with the UPA as he claims,” the Congress general secretary in charge of communications said in a statement.
The Congress and the AIUDF came together to form a “grand alliance”, along with the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) and the CPI(M), ahead of the Assembly elections in 2021. The alliance won 50 seats in the 126-member legislature, with the Congress bagging 19 constituencies and the Ajmal-led outfit winning 16.
Later that year, the Congress severed the alliance apparently because of some “pro-BJP” statements by some AIUDF leaders. It was billed as a tactical move on the part of the Congress since being tied to the AIUDF, whose primary support base is Bengali-origin Muslims, came at the cost of support from “indigenous” Assamese and caste Hindus, especially in Upper Assam.
Since the Rajya Sabha poll fiasco, the parties have frequently targeted each other. “That decision (to ally with the AIUDF) had not been an easy one to take for the Congress. But it was taken in the belief that Shri Ajmal will be a consistent and reliable partner and who will strengthen secular forces in the state and in the country. After the election results, it became very clear that Shri Ajmal had worked out a relationship with the Chief Minister of Assam. The two worked out a relationship between themselves with the sole purpose of maligning and defaming the Congress and its leadership,” Ramesh said on Wednesday.
Several state Congress leaders too lashed out at Ajmal. “Though there was an alliance with Ajmal for the Vidhan Sabha elections, there were a lot of people even within the party who were against it but accepted it as the party’s decision. But soon after that, he and his MLAs began praising the chief minister and began dancing to his tune. There is no alliance of any sort with Badruddin Ajmal now. He is remote-controlled by the BJP and Himanta Biswa Sarma,” said Lok Sabha MP Abdul Khaleque of the Congress.
“We keep saying that there will be no alliance with the AIUDF but they keep saying there will be an alliance, the ‘the AICC will make an alliance’, that ‘I have a good relationship with Sonia ji’, ‘I have a good relationship with Kharge ji’… That is why this letter, so that they will stop trying to seek an alliance with us,” said Congress MLA Jakir Hussain Sikdar.
