Will team up with anti-BJP parties for rural polls: Cong

Guwahati: Expressing confidence that the unity among the INDIA alliance partners in Assam remains intact, state PCC chief Bhupen Borah on Saturday said Congress would form district-level alliances with anti-BJP parties supportive of the INDIA alliance for the coming panchayat polls.
Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma has announced that rural elections will be held in November, with a delimitation exercise for all development blocks to be carried out beforehand.
Asserting that their next goal is to win the panchayat polls, Borah said district Congress committees would have full autonomy to finalise the list of candidates following discussions with opposition allies that are part of the INDIA bloc and its local version, the United Opposition Forum-Assam.
For panchayat elections, Borah said the party has decided to grant authority to district Congress committees due to the large number of candidates, going up to 1200 in a district. “We will direct the party’s district committees to discuss the alliance strategy with the district-level leaders of our alliance partners at the state level who were together in the Lok Sabha polls,” he added.
He claimed that after Congress distanced itself from AIUDF, the party’s vote share has improved in every constituency in upper Assam, which is inhabited by indigenous tribes and communities.
Borah told the media that his opposition to a Congress-AIUDF alliance had a significant impact on his political career and his role as PCC president. “I am grateful that voters have given a decisive mandate against AIUDF. My stand was that if we must weaken communal forces in Assam, we must work not only against BJP but also against AIUDF.
The ‘AIUDF-BJP alliance’ had hatched a conspiracy to fan communal, divisive politics in Assam,” he said.
The last partnership between Congress and AIUDF in Assam was during the 2021 elections. Following BJP’s victory, Congress and AIUDF parted ways, with both accusing each other of colluding with the saffron party.
“After AIUDF was defeated in all three seats it contested — Dhubri, Nagaon, and Karimganj, BJP has become like a patient in a hospital whose oxygen support has been snapped,” Borah said ahead of his visit to Behali.
A byelection has been necessitated in Behali assembly constituency with the MLA from the said seat, Ranjit Dutta of BJP, being elected to the Lok Sabha from Sonitpur.