Assam Assembly election | Congress too targets 100 seats

Party confident after forming grand alliance, says chief of State unit

After the BJP, the Congress has targeted at least 100 seats in the upcoming Assembly election in Assam.

The election to the 126-member House is expected to be over by May.

“We had initially set our sights on 80 seats. But after forming the grand alliance, we are confident of winning at least 100,” State Congress president Ripun Bora said.

The Congress had cobbled up an alliance with the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) led by perfume baron and MP Badruddin Ajmal, the regional Anchalik Gana Morcha and three Left Front parties – the Communist Party of India, the CPI (Marxist) and CPI (Marxist-Leninist) – more than a week ago.

“We will definitely win more than the number the BJP thinks it can win,” Lok Sabha member Gaurav Gogoi said.

The BJP in 2020 launched ‘Mission 100+’, eyeing at least 16 seats more than ‘Mission 84’ that it had set for its three-party alliance ahead of the 2016 poll.

The BJP is expected to replace one of its regional allies, the Bodoland People’s Front, with the United People’s Party Liberal. There is no such plan for the other ally, the Asom Gana Parishad.

‘Congress overconfident’

State Finance and Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the Congress was being overconfident. “They will win a century of seats only in Bangladesh,” he said at a party event in western Assam’s Chirang on January 29.

The mention of Bangladesh is seen as a barb aimed at the Congress for partnering the AIUDF, a party that has won mostly in the Bengal-origin Muslim belts of Assam since its first Assembly election in 2006.

An internal survey of the Congress, meanwhile, has projected a fairly grim picture for the party across 43 Assembly seats in eastern Assam. The analysis, party leaders said, was done to gauge the mood after the announcement of the grand alliance.

The survey said the party could win at most 19 of the 43 seats. The factors included the alliance with AIUDF, viewed by indigenous communities as a party catering primarily to immigrants, the erosion of votes in the tea-growing areas where plantation workers form the bulk of voters and a “change in the political scenario” after the birth of two new regional parties – the Assam Jatiya Parishad and the Raijor Dal.

The Congress has been appealing to the two new parties to reconsider their stand against joining the grand alliance.

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