The newly formed Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) has finalised a pre-poll alliance with jailed peasants’ rights activist Akhil Gogoi’s Raijor Dal (RD).
This is the third alliance after the ones led by the BJP and the Congress in Assam ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections.
“I met Akhil Gogoi at the Gauhati Medical College and Hospital today [Thursday] and finalised the alliance. The formal announcement will be made soon,” AJP president Lurinjyoti Gogoi said.
The AJP president was the general secretary of the All Assam Students’ Union, which had formed the party in September 2020 along with the Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chhatra Parishad.
“The regional parties will fight together against the national and communal parties to form the next government,” he said.
Mr. Akhil Gogoi was arrested in December 2019 after the violent protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act that claimed at least five lives. He is undergoing treatment at the medical college hospital.
Another alliance in sight
The Bodoland People’s Front (BPF), ditched by the BJP, could join the AJP-RD alliance.
“A decision on the alliance will be taken on or after February 15. The alliance will be with an anti-BJP force,” BPF leader Kampa Borgoyari said, admitting that his party was looking for a suitable ally.
The BPF is also weighing the option of joining the Congress-led grand alliance whose constituents are the All India United Democratic Front led by perfume baron Badruddin Ajmal, three Left parties and the regional Anchalik Gana Morcha.
The BPF had won all 12 Assembly seats straddling the Bodoland Territorial Region in 2016. It lost the election to the Bodoland Territorial Council in December 2020 to the alliance of the rival United People’s Party Liberal, the BJP and the Gana Suraksha Party.
The BJP, which had contested the 2016 polls with the BPF as an ally, has virtually sealed a poll pact with the UPPL besides continuing with the friendship with the Asom Gana Parishad.