By Sagarneel Sinha
After being out of power in the northeastern state of Assam for a decade, the grand old party has been trying to dislodge the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) from power. This became evident when Congress’s high command put its weight behind Lok Sabha’s deputy Leader of Opposition Gaurav Gogoi by assigning him the post of state president last year replacing Bhupen Kumar Borah. Now, despite being a member of the Lok Sabha, he is being nominated by the party from the Jorhat assembly constituency — a clear signal by the party command that he is the face of the party’s campaign against chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma-led BJP juggernaut.
Gaurav’s standing within the party rose after he defeated BJP’s Tapan Kumar Gogoi in the Jorhat Lok Sabha seat in Upper Assam — considered a BJP’s bastion — at a time when the party swept the state under the Narendra Modi wave. This victory came after Himanta-led BJP campaigned strongly against Gaurav’s candidature in Jorhat.
However, this rise of Gaurav hasn’t gone down well with some senior leaders of the party. Two of them — Bhupen Borah and Nagaon Lok Sabha MP Pradyut Bordoloi — have already left the party to join the BJP, which has now given tickets to these leaders for the assembly elections. BJP fielded Bhupen from Bihpuria while Pradyut from Dispur. While Congress may continue to downplay these desertions, these developments, no doubt, have cast a negative perception about the party in the minds of the voters ahead of the assembly polls.
While these desertions have prospects to hurt the Congress, the grand old party hasn’t been sitting idle either. It has been successful in stitching a broad coalition against the BJP-led NDA. The coalition included two Assamese parties — Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP)-led by Luringjyoti Gogoi and Raijor Dal-led by Akhil Gogoi. Both the parties arose from the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests. Last time both the parties contested together against both NDA and Congress-led Opposition bloc, and impacted at least 14 seats in both Upper and North Assam. While AJP failed to win any seats, Raijor Dal secured a seat with Akhil Gogoi winning from Sibsagar constituency.
Congress allotted AJP has been allotted 10 seats — three each from Lower and Central Assam and four from Upper Assam. On the other hand, Congress agreed to cede 11 seats to Raijor Dal while agreeing for a friendly contest in two seats — Gauripur and Goalpara (East), both are Muslim majority seats falling under Lower Assam. Akhil Gogoi will contest from Sibsagar as the joint Opposition candidate. Of the 11 seats, Raijor Dal is allotted 7 seats in Upper and North Assam.
Congress being able to stitch alliances with both the AJP and Raijor Dal is definitely a boost for the grand old party, as it helps to reduce the division of anti-BJP votes. However, while AJP has a support in most of the constituencies, Raijor Dal has negligible presence in many seats where it is going to contest. On the one hand, this reflects Akhil’s ability to punch above his weight; on the other, it could end up hurting the alliance overall.
The Congress allotted two seats — Diphu (ST) and Amri (ST) — to All Party Hill Leaders Conference (APHLC) in the hill districts of Karbi Anglong and West Karbi Anglong. It allotted two seats — Bhawanipur-Sorbhog and Goreswar — to Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M), which initially had demanded seven seats as told to this writer by a state party secretariat member. The Left party has nominated its sitting MLA Manoranjan Talukdar from the newly created Bhawanipur-Sambhog seat. The other Left party, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation or CPI(ML)(L) has been given the Behali (SC) seat. However, CPI is yet to be accommodated in the alliance. The oldest Left party has announced to contest 5 seats independently.
A major constituent not part of the alliance is the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF)-led by Badruddin Ahmed. Last time, the party, whose base is primarily among the Bengali Muslims of Lower Assam and Barak Valley, was part of the alliance. However, this time, Congress has avoided repeating the mistake of allying with AIUDF, which is disliked by the Assamese Hindus. Instead, Congress has accused the AIUDF as a B-team of the BJP as a well-planned strategy to create doubts among the Bengali Muslims regarding the AIUDF. This strategy has paid well for the Congress which was able to defeat Ajmal from his Dhubri bastion in the Lok Sabha elections. The grand old party believes that this strategy would work this time. So, it has avoided an alliance with AIUDF as it prepares to regain lost ground among the Assamese Hindus.
The alliance would have been considerably strengthened with United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL) in the fold. The party quit the NDA after BJP chose the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) over it. Earlier there were reports of possible talks between Congress and Bodo-based UPPL but that talks didn’t materialise. Even weakened, UPPL remains one of the two major parties in the Bodoland region’s 15 assembly constituencies. Interestingly, UPPL chief Pramod Boro went to Rajya Sabha this month with BJP’s support. That perhaps explains why the party hasn’t clearly spelled out whether it is with the NDA at the centre — and why the Congress may have stayed away from an alliance with it.
For Congress, contesting on 100 seats this time, the road to power in Assam depends on its ability to rebuild its lost support base among Assamese Hindus. Last time, the party performed poorly in Upper Assam and North Assam, and was able to secure only 9 of the 49 seats in these regions. Although Congress won the Jorhat Lok Sabha seat, it performed poorly in Upper Assam, including Jorhat, and North Assam in the panchayat elections held last year. This underlines the difficulties of Congress in the state.
This also explains why Gaurav Gogoi-led Congress allied with Raijor Dal and AJP — the two Assamese parties to counter BJP’s pro-Assamese narrative. Through this alliance strategy, the Congress showed that it is ready to put up a strong fight against the BJP-led NDA, which was ahead in 92 assembly seats in the Lok Sabha elections — a clear sign of the ruling alliance’s electoral dominance in the northeastern state. (IPA Service)
