Nine parties turn up as Assam Congress calls meeting to unite Oppn against BJP in 2024

Jatiya Dal, Akhil Gogoi’s Raijor Dal, CPI(M), Assam Jatiya Parishad, CPI, CPI(M-L), National Congress Party, Liberal Democratic Party, and Rashtriya Janata Dal attended the meeting.

“We discussed the current political situation and the issues affecting the people of Assam to formulate a strategy on how to move ahead. We decided that in order to protect democracy and defeat anti-Constitution and anti-people BJP, it is necessary to fight in a united way,” said APCC president Bhupen Borah.

He also stated that the leaders of all 10 parties took a decision to hold a state-level meeting on April 9 in which district-level and grassroots representatives from each of the parties will take part.

Conspicuous by the absence in the Friday meeting was Badruddin Ajmal’s All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), which was part of the ani-BJP “grand alliance” stitched by the Congress ahead of the 2021 state Assembly polls. Since then, the Congress and AIUDF relations have been on a slide and hit the nadir earlier this year when senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh denounced Ajmal as a “mouthpiece of the BJP” and that he “has nothing whatsoever to do with the UPA”.

Also absent from the meeting were All India Trinamool Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party, both of which have a presence in the state. Borah attributed their absence to talks not being initiated on this matter with them at the “national level”.

Reacting to the development, AIUDF spokesperson Karim Uddin Barbhuiya told reporters on Saturday that it will “assist the BJP”. “This alliance was there in the last by-election and they lost in that. This is a tested failed alliance… If those rejected by the public sit and say things to the public, who will pay them attention? They are doing all this because if AIUDF is isolated, it will benefit the BJP,” he said.