Cong ready to forge poll alliance with AIUDF

GUWAHATI: The core committee meeting of Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) held in the city on Tuesday gave its go-ahead to an alliance with the Badruddin Ajmal-led All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) and all other non-BJP parties to dethrone the saffron alliance from power in the assembly polls slated early next year.
“Today, we have reached a consensus to appeal to all the non-BJP forces as well as the tribes and communities to join the grand alliance to defeat the BJP. AIUDF can be a partner of the grand-alliance," APCC president Ripun Bora told the media after the meeting.
Though some of the leaders of the All Assam Students’ Union (Aasu) may soon come out of the student body to float a party with the representatives of the like-minded organisations to take on the BJP in next year’s assembly election, Bora named the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) and Independent Rajya Sabha MP Ajit Kumar Bhuyan-led Anchalik Gana Morcha as the probable allies of the grand alliance which going ahead with their electoral ambitions like the Aasu.
Aasu general secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoi, one of the most vocal proponents of the new political alternative, already clarified that they will maintain equal distance from both the Congress and AIUDF, if joins electoral politics.
Meanwhile, veteran Congress leader and former chief minister Tarun Gogoi too agreed that there is no hesitation in partnering with the AIUDF to resist the BJP from returning to power. He, however, made it clear that the if the Congress-led coalition registers victory in the coming assembly polls, the chief minister will be from the Congress.
According to insiders in the Congress, there was a difference in opinion between the Congress leaders for long whether to rope in the AIUDF for the grand-alliance.
Meanwhile, the AIUDF welcomed the APCC core committee decision, saying that the grand-alliance will pose a massive challenge bore the BJP alliance in Assam. “The Congress-AIUDF alliance with support of other non-BJP parties will be big challenge for the saffron alliance. We want Aasu, KMSS everyone to be part of it. BJP is already worried after seeing the possibilities of the grand-alliance,” AIUDF general secretary Aminul Islam, said.