Opposition parties in Assam decide to form anti-BJP front for 2026 Assembly polls, AIUDF excluded

Guwahati: Seven Opposition parties including Congress in Assam on Wednesday decided to form an anti-BJP front for the next year's Assembly polls with a target to unseat the saffron party and its allies.

This was decided in a meeting convened by Congress at the Congress Legislature Party office in the State Assembly complex in Guwahati, which was attended by the top leaders of seven regional parties. Raijor Dal led by Sivasagar MLA Akhil Gogoi and Lurinjyoti Gogoi-led Asom Jatiya Parishad (AJP) are among the prominent regional parties that attended the meeting. CPI, CPM, CPI (M), Anchalik Gana Morcha led by Rajya Sabha Member Ajit Kumar Bhuyan and All Party Hill Leader's Conference, another small political outfit with base in Karbi Anglong district are the other partners.

"We all had an eagerness to contest the next Assembly elections together in order to free the people of Assam from the harassment, corruption and divisive politics of BJP and Himanta Biswa Sarma government. Today, we have taken that decision to unseat BJP," Congress MP and Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) President, Gaurav Gogoi told reporters after the meeting. AICC general secretary Jitendra Singh, who is also the party's in-charge of Assam, attended the meeting.

"We all had to say what Gaurav Gogoi has just told you," Lurinjyoti Gogoi, President of AJP said.

Regarding seat sharing, Rajya Sabha Member Ajit Kumar Bhuyan, who leads Anchalik Gana Morcha, a small regional party, said, "We will gradually take those decisions and let the people of Assam know.

Possible impact

AJP, which came into being during the anti-CAA agitation in 2020, is likely to have an impact on BJP in the central and eastern Assam constituencies, where the indigenous communities hold the key. Raijor Dal, on the other hand, is focusing both in eastern Assam and in minority-dominated constituencies in central and western Assam. Both Morcha and AJP were formed in 2020 and are yet to withess electoral success.

Raijor Dal has one MLA, president Akhil Gogoi himself.

Ajmal party out

Badruddin Ajmal-led AIUDF, which had contested the 2021 Assembly elections in seat sharing arrangements with Congress, however, is not part of the proposed anti-BJP front.

AIUDF has 15 MLAs (out of 226 seats) but had recently announced that it would go solo in the Assembly polls slated in April-May next year. The AIUDF's exclusion, according to observers, is likely to divide the Muslim votes and help BJP, which is banking on the Hindu votes.

BJP is once again projecting the polls as a fight between the indigenous people and the "illegal migrants".

Sources within Congress, however, did not rule out the possibility of a post-poll alliance with AIUDF.

The parties, barring AIUDF, had fielded common candidates in the Lok Sabha polls in 2024 but the opposition forum collapsed during bypolls for five Assembly seats a few months later.

BJP, on the other hand, is likely to contest the polls in alliance with Asom Gana Parishad and Bodoland People's Front (BPF). There is no clarity about BJP's alliance with UPPL, a partner in the present government. UPPL, which lost the Bodoland Territorial Council polls last month, is upset over BPF's inclusion in the NDA and in Himanta Biswa Sarma government recently after the BTC polls results. BPF was part of the Opposition forum in 2021 but later quit.