Although the ruling Congress in Assam has been reiterating its stand that the party will go to polls alone, All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) chief Moulana Badaruddin Ajmal on Friday said that the party decided not to contest in 66 Assembly seats in the forthcoming elections to help Congress and to defeat the BJP.
Ajmal told this to news after addressing a meeting at Dhubri districts located on the Indo-Bangladesh border and said that his party will contest in only 60 seats in the forthcoming polls.
“We have decided to contest in 60 seats only. The rest 66 seats we are going to leave to Congress so that we can defeat the BJP,” said Ajmal while refusing to divulge the details of the understanding with the ruling party.
“I cannot reveal the details of the understanding. But we do not want to mislead anyone. I am talking it straight but some people are hiding it to mislead the people,” Amjal said while appealing that the AIUDF will appeal the voters in those 66 constituencies to vote for the Congress.
It may be mentioned here that the AIUDF had a few days back issued a statement saying that the party, which is the principal opposition party of Assam with 18 members in the present House, is going to contest in only 60 seats in the forthcoming party and that it will leave the rest 66 seats to ‘like-minded’ and ‘secular’ parties.
Today Ajmal for the first time named the Congress and said that the party is leaving the 66 seats to the Congress.
Assam CM Tarun Gogoi and the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) has been refuting the reports that the party has any understanding with any political party.
CM Tarun Gogoi has recently said that AIUDF had entered with tacit understanding with the BJP to defeat the Congress candidates by engineering a split in votes and ensuring the victory of the saffron party.
Gogoi said that by deciding to field candidates in 60 constituencies where they have no chances of winning, Ajmal has entered into a political game plan with the BJP, like they did in the last Parliamentary elections, to defeat the Congress candidates.
“If AIUDF is for uniting Muslims to consolidate minority votes, the BJP is also propagating the Hindutva agenda of RSS and uniting Hindus. Both the parties have the same kind of strategy to polarize the electorate on religious lines. AIUDF and BJP are two sides of the same coin,” Gogoi stated recently.