So, the Congress and All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), two parties which have so much in common as far as protecting illegal migrants in Assam, have made it clear that they are willing to join hands in the ensuing Rajya Sabha election in Assam. Three-time Chief Minister and veteran Congress leader Tarun Gogoi too is keen on forging an alliance with the AIUDF. Gogoi had once created headlines by asking “Who is Badruddin”, one that had helped the Congress party sweep an Assembly election too. Needless to say that while the Congress is immensely accused of having encouraged infiltration from erstwhile East Pakistan and present-day Bangladesh, the AIUDF was constituted to protect the interests of infiltrators – particularly Muslim infiltrators – in the backdrop of the Supreme Court scrapping the notorious Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act – IM(DT) Act – in July 2005. The younger generations in Assam must be reminded that the IM(DT) Act was brought by the by Indira Gandhi government in 1983 at the behest of them Assam Chief Minister Hiteswar Saikia and his law minister Abdul Muhib Majumdar with the sole intention of protecting the illegal migrants. Those were the days when the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) was spearheading a huge popular movement demanding detection and deportation of the illegal migrants. It is interesting to also note the role and stand of the Congress and AIUDF while the BJP has played its Hindutva card and divided the illegal migrants into Muslims and Hindus (with Christians, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs also clubbed with the latter) and amended the Citizenship Act itself to grant Indian citizenship to the latter category of illegal migrants of East Pakistan and Bangladesh origin. While the BJP is clear on protecting and keeping the non-Muslim illegal migrants, the AASU has been demanding that there should be no religious distinction while identifying illegal migrants. What the people must note is that neither Congress nor AIUDF is saying that illegal migrants should not be distinguished on religious lines. Both are also not clearing asking for detection and deportation of infiltrators without religious distinction. Both instead have been by and large taking a stand that is something like keeping all illegal migrants, irrespective of their religious affiliation, with little botheration about whatever happens to the Assamese and other indigenous communities of Assam and the Northeast. Simultaneously, both Congress and AIUDF are also trying to take advantage of the anti-CAA agitation in order to get political mileage at the cost of the interest of the indigenous people.