Choose anti-citizenship bill parties in seats where we aren’t contesting: AIUDF

Guwahati: All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), which will be the third force against Congress and BJP and its allies in the second and third phases, has appealed to all its supporters to vote for the party opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in six of the nine seats it is not contesting this time.
Silchar, Karimganj, Autonomous District and Nagaon will go to the polls in the second phase on April 18 and Guwahati, Mangaldai, Barpeta, Kokrajhar and Dhubri will vote in the third and last phase on April 23 . AIUDF has restricted itself to contesting in the three seats it holds —Karimganj, Dhubri and Barpeta.

In all the five constituencies, Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Kaliabor, Tezpur and Lakhimpur, where polling was completed in the first phase on Thursday, the battle was a straight fight between Congress and BJP along with its ally, AGP.

These five constituencies in upper Assam comprises ethnic Assamese communities and tea tribes. The demography of voters in the remaining nine constituencies in central Assam, Barak valley, western Assam and lower Assam, including Guwahati, is a mix of ethnic communities, tribal groups, adivasis and Bengali-speaking Hindu and Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh.

AIUDF general secretary and spokesperson Champak Kalita said, “We have appealed to our voters in these seats, where we are not contesting this time, to vote for any party which opposes the citizenship bill. Our policy this time is to prevent division of the anti-citizenship bill votes and so we decided to restrict ourselves to just three seats that we hold at present.”

Kalita said that AIUDF has not given space to Congress by not contesting in these seats but “any anti-citizenship bill party will get reap the virtual benefit.” He added, “We don’t consider AGP or BPF to be anti-citizenship bill parties. Anyone who allies with BJP are in favour of the bill.”

AIUDF has recently extended support to United People’s Party (Liberal) in two seats, Kokrajhar and Mangaldai.

According to the 2011 census, Muslim population is in majority in nine districts —Barpeta, Bongaigaon, Darrang, Dhubri, Goalpara, Hailakandi, Karimganj, Morigaon and Nagaon. In three other districts — Nalbari, Cachar and Kamrup — the Muslim population is between 35% to 39%. All these districts will go to the polls in the second and third phases.

In 10 assembly segments across four Lok Sabha constituencies — Guwahati, Silchar, Mangaldai and Nagaon — Muslim voters are in the majority and can decide electoral fortunes. The assembly segments on BJP’s watch list are Boko and Barkhetri in Guwahati, Katigorah and Borkhola in Silchar, Dalgaon and Mangaldai in Mangaldai and Jamunamukh, Lahorighat, Hojai and Lumding in Nagaon.

In 2014, Congress had won the Silchar seat and finished a second in Guwahati, Mangaldai and Nagaon. AIUDF was in the third position. In the absence of AIUDF in these seats, their voters now hold the key to who will emerge as the winner.