India News | Will Meet Opposition Leaders After Results of Bypolls: Assam Congress Chief
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. A month after the Congress exited the opposition front in Assam over differences in seat sharing for the bypolls, its state president Bhupen Kumar Borah on Friday said he would try his best to reunite with it to defeat the BJP-led dispensation in the next state elections.
Guwahati, Nov 22 (PTI) A month after the Congress exited the opposition front in Assam over differences in seat sharing for the bypolls, its state president Bhupen Kumar Borah on Friday said he would try his best to reunite with it to defeat the BJP-led dispensation in the next state elections.
In an interview with PTI ahead of the counting of votes for the bypolls to the five assembly constituencies, Borah said he would seek a meeting with leaders of the opposition bloc, Asom Sonmilito Morcha (ASOM), in the first week of December to resolve the differences.
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"What will be the impact of breaking opposition unity, it is difficult for me to say today. We will discuss it after the results are declared tomorrow. But one thing I can announce here is that I will try my level best to unite all anti-BJP parties as soon as possible so that we can fight the 2026 assembly elections together," he said.
Borah resigned as the president of ASOM on October 22, stating that he was under "tremendous pressure" after the Congress national leadership refused to accept the CPI(ML) Liberation candidate in the Behali seat.
Following this, ASOM appointed Rajya Sabha MP Ajit Kumar Bhuyan of the Anchalik Gana Morcha as its president, and the bloc supported the CPI(ML) Liberation nominee in the seat against a Congress candidate.
Besides Behali, bypolls were held in Samaguri, Dholai, Bongaigaon and Sidli on November 13. The by-elections were necessitated as the MLAs of these constituencies won the Lok Sabha polls.
Borah claimed that the INDIA bloc was "not working" in many states due to "internal problems".
He said the ASOM bloc has 16 parties, including RJD, SP and Shiv Sena, which do not have much base in Assam.
"If tomorrow, these parties demand seats here to contest only for the sake of it, then we will definitely have to think... Otherwise, people will say that the Congress is not serious about fighting against BJP," he said.
"These are the problems and I think we will sort it out very soon. After these results, in the first week of December, I will try to sit with the important leaders of ASOM," he added.
Borah said the differences within ASOM emerged following Congress's reservations over the candidate initially considered by the CPI(ML) Liberation for Behali.
"As per the assessment of our party, the candidate who the CPI(ML) Liberation considered was not strong enough to fight the BJP. Chances of success must be the first priority, which is why we decided to field our own candidate," he said.
Borah claimed that the difference was not over CPI(ML) Liberation seeking to contest in that seat but over the choice of its candidate.
Even though the Left party later changed its nominee, the Congress was not satisfied, he said.
Borah said the CPI(ML) Liberation contested Behali in the 2021 assembly polls as part of the opposition alliance, and secured only 21,000 votes, whereas the Congress's Sonitpur Lok Sabha candidate managed 43,000 votes in the Behali assembly segment this year.
"How can a party that secured 43,000 votes in June sacrifice its seat to a party that secured 21,000 votes even when it is in an alliance?" he questioned.
He said that in the state elections, the Congress will try to accommodate other political parties, considering there are 126 seats to fight.
"I am very much hopeful that we will be able to fight together and defeat the BJP," he said.
On the party's prospects in the bypolls, the Congress leader said, "As per our internal assessment, we are hopeful in four seats. In the Lok Sabha elections, we were ahead in Samaguri by a small margin. In Behali, Dholai and Bongaigaon, our position was not good. But in these by-elections, as per reports from our grassroots workers, polling agents and local leaders who were involved with campaigning, the result will be very much in our favour."
On Sidli, Borah said the Congress was hopeful about a good performance in this constituency under the Bodoland Territorial Region.
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)