RJD may join Congress-led 'Grand Alliance' in Assam to unseat BJP

Bihar's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) have decided to contest Assembly elections in Assam and held talks with leaders of Congress-led "Grand Alliance"of the Opposition parties, which is eyeing to unseat BJP and its allies.

RJD chief and leader of the Opposition in Bihar Assembly, Tejaswi Prasad Yadav told reporters in Guwahati on Saturday that the party would target the Hindi-speaking voters in Assam and would try to help the parties opposed to the BJP and its allies in the state.

"Congress is our natural ally. We contested elections together with Congress in Bihar and we are still part of the UPA at the Centre. We want to help the parties, which oppose BJP and so we held talks with Congress and Badruddin Ajmal of All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF). Decisions about the alliance or the number of seats we will contest will be taken very soon," Yadav said.

Also read: Will CAA or development dictate Assam's poll battle?

"There are sizeable number of Hindi speaking voters in Assam. It comes to around 5% of Assam's population. Most of them have roots in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand. Even people working in Assam's tea gardens have roots in Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha etc. Our effort will be to consolidate them and support the anti-BJP forces as the nation and our Constitution under threat from divisive forces like BJP and RSS. Today the nation is in crisis. Constitutional bodies like CBI, ED and Income Tax department are functioning like cells of BJP and RSS," Yadav said, who is visiting Assam for the first time.

Yadav reached Guwahati on Friday and visited Kamakhya temple on Saturday morning before holding talks with Ajmal and leaders of RJD's Assam unit.

Assembly elections in Assma is schduled in three phases on March 27, April 1 and April 6.

Congress has already formed a "Grand Alliance" of six parties including AIUDF and the left parties while BJP is gearing up to contest the elections in alliance with AGP and UPPL, a regional force in Bodoland. Two new parties, which were formed out of the anti-CAA agitation have also decided to fight the elections together with a target to stop BJP and its allies from retaining power.

Yadav said that RJD has identified at least 11 Assembly seats having sizeable number of Hindi speaking voters.

Apart from the CAA and NRC, RJD plans to flag issues like flood, unemplyment, labour issues, which are common between Assam and Bihar.