GUWAHATI: The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is all set to enter the political fray in Assam, but with an understanding with key Grand Alliance headed by Congress and AIUDF so as not to divide votes. RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav said this in Guwahati on Saturday.
The heir apparent of Lalu Prasad Yadav, who arrived here on Friday on a two-day visit, is focussing on winning the votes of the five percent Hindi-speaking people, who have origins in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and other neighbouring north Indian states. A large number of daily wage earners from Bihar have been working in the state for generations.
Tejaswi held a closed-door meeting with Assam Congress president Ripun Bora late on Friday evening and another round of meeting with AIUDF supremo Badruddin Ajmal in a city hotel on Saturday to chalk out plans. Tejaswi visited the Kamakhya temple on Saturday morning. “We have a plan to field candidates in about 11 constituencies where a significant number of voters are Hindi-speaking,” Tejaswi said.
He added that people from Bihar are unhappy because their family members had to go to Assam in search of livelihood. “A large population of Bihar lives in Assam. Unemployment has risen by leaps and bounds in Bihar, it is now 46.6%” he added.
Also in Tejaswi’s glare is the large population of tea garden workers in Assam who have traditionally voted for the Congress. The gardens are now a BJP stronghold. Tejaswi is hoping to cut through this maze and attract the garden workers to the RJD fold by virtue of their roots.
“The RJD will be very selective in choosing seats in Assam. We don’t want to divide votes as it will benefit BJP. Our priority in Assam is to resist communal forces and also to win,” the young leader said, adding that he would also campaign in poll-bound West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry.
The opposition in Assam had forged an electoral understanding in the name of Grand Alliance in January this year comprising the Congress, AIUDF, CPI, CPM, CPI-ML (Liberation) and the Anchalik Gana Morcha (AGM), but they have not been able to come to a decision regarding seat-sharing yet. Ajmal has even gone on to say that he could sacrifice seats just to defeat the BJP.
Tejaswi said they want to expand their base and the Assam state committee of the RJD has already been in touch with political parties active in the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) and local parties, thereby hinting at RJD’s attempts to come closer to new regional parties like the Assam Jatiya Parishad and Raijor Dal.
RJD was among the few national-level parties which supported the movement against the Citizenship Amendment Act. However, the decision of the AJP and the Raijor Dal, borne out of the citizenship stir, to keep themselves away from ‘national and communal parties’, could prove to be the biggest hurdle for Tejaswi in coming closer to them.
Tejaswi hit out at BJP leaders for advocating CAA, which he said was against the secular ethos of the Constitution and attacked the BJP-RSS for allegedly using the CBI, ED and IT to its own advantage.
RJD has a history of winning some of the assembly segments in northeastern states like Nagaland and Manipur. Tejaswi felt that since RJD is a part of the UPA and fought the Bihar election with the Congress, stitching a poll deal with the Opposition alliance in Assam will not be a difficult task for them. “Without contesting the election, we cannot expand our base in Assam. That’s why we will fight the polls here,” he told reporters during his maiden Assam visit.