There is a strong sense of déjà vu about the political polarization in Asom before the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. The shift in alignments in the last two days might have raised many eyebrows were it not for the fact that politics makes strange bedfellows — the stranger the better. What happened in 2008 over the nuclear agreement issue when the Left parties withdrew support to the UPA and what happened more recently when Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan chose a path independent of the Congress is old news by now. But all such withdrawal of support has made things extremely difficult for the Congress in both Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, considering that there are 120 Lok Sabha seats in these two States. It was indeed unfortunate that both the Left parties and Lalu Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal should have fully utilized the opportunities of being partners of the ruling coalition for the last five years by riding piggy-back on the Congress and calling the shots as far policy matters and the administration were concerned. What better examples did anyone need as far as the UPA and its summer friends were concerned?
The situation in Asom is a trifle more bizarre even for the Indian political scenario. Here, in 2006, when people were half expecting Badruddin Ajmal’s Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF) to team up as a coalition partner of the Congress during the Assembly elections, there were frantic moves on the part of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) to get the AUDF on its side. And given that the AUDF was clearly a communal party masquerading as a pseudo-secular one (much like the Congress), the people of Asom were aghast at the AGP seeking to forge an alliance with the AUDF. And when people wanted to know from Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi about the Congress joining hands with Badruddin Ajmal’s party, his had wanted to know who Badruddin Ajmal was. This gesture at once killed the possibilities of an alliance between the Congress and the AUDF and got the Congress a lot of the votes of the indigenous Asomiyas that might have gone to the AGP. If anything, quite a sizeable section of the indigenous Asomiyas was cold to the AGP then because the party had toyed with the idea of an alliance with the AUDF. However, it is not for nothing that they talk about politics making strange bedfellows. What has happened in Asom this time around has come as a googly to the indigenous people of the State. In the beginning, since there were no indications from the Congress that there could be a pre-poll alliance with the AUDF, the AUDF was planning to join hands with the BJP-AGP alliance in order to consolidate its anti-Congress stance. However, Badruddin Ajmal had not quite shut the door on the Congress either. During the last four or five days, he had carried on discussions with Sonia Gandhi, Ahmed Patel, Mohsina Kidwai, Veerappa Moily, Digvijay Singh, Tarun Gogoi and Bhubaneswar Kalita. On the basis of these discussions, Ajmal had decided a little after midnight on Tuesday that he was better off with a ‘secular’ political party like the Congress than with a non-secular and ‘communal’ alliance like the AGP-BJP. Could there have been stranger bedfellows? We have just seen the most unexpected parties planning to share the same bed. The only common factor really is that they both want the Bangladeshis to take over Asom. So, someone who had asked the question “Who is Badruddin?” will now be sharing his bed. And the pound of flesh? The Congress will give up Nagaon and Dhubri constituencies to the AUDF and the AUDF will surrender Silchar to the Congress. After all, how could they let the AGP-BJP alliance take away some seats by letting the AUDF split the Congress votes and vice versa? THE SENTINEL
The situation in Asom is a trifle more bizarre even for the Indian political scenario. Here, in 2006, when people were half expecting Badruddin Ajmal’s Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF) to team up as a coalition partner of the Congress during the Assembly elections, there were frantic moves on the part of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) to get the AUDF on its side. And given that the AUDF was clearly a communal party masquerading as a pseudo-secular one (much like the Congress), the people of Asom were aghast at the AGP seeking to forge an alliance with the AUDF. And when people wanted to know from Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi about the Congress joining hands with Badruddin Ajmal’s party, his had wanted to know who Badruddin Ajmal was. This gesture at once killed the possibilities of an alliance between the Congress and the AUDF and got the Congress a lot of the votes of the indigenous Asomiyas that might have gone to the AGP. If anything, quite a sizeable section of the indigenous Asomiyas was cold to the AGP then because the party had toyed with the idea of an alliance with the AUDF. However, it is not for nothing that they talk about politics making strange bedfellows. What has happened in Asom this time around has come as a googly to the indigenous people of the State. In the beginning, since there were no indications from the Congress that there could be a pre-poll alliance with the AUDF, the AUDF was planning to join hands with the BJP-AGP alliance in order to consolidate its anti-Congress stance. However, Badruddin Ajmal had not quite shut the door on the Congress either. During the last four or five days, he had carried on discussions with Sonia Gandhi, Ahmed Patel, Mohsina Kidwai, Veerappa Moily, Digvijay Singh, Tarun Gogoi and Bhubaneswar Kalita. On the basis of these discussions, Ajmal had decided a little after midnight on Tuesday that he was better off with a ‘secular’ political party like the Congress than with a non-secular and ‘communal’ alliance like the AGP-BJP. Could there have been stranger bedfellows? We have just seen the most unexpected parties planning to share the same bed. The only common factor really is that they both want the Bangladeshis to take over Asom. So, someone who had asked the question “Who is Badruddin?” will now be sharing his bed. And the pound of flesh? The Congress will give up Nagaon and Dhubri constituencies to the AUDF and the AUDF will surrender Silchar to the Congress. After all, how could they let the AGP-BJP alliance take away some seats by letting the AUDF split the Congress votes and vice versa? THE SENTINEL
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