Gogoi failed to learn tricks of the trade: Ajmal

By our Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI, March 25: AIUDF president and Dhubri MP Badruddin Ajmal has said that despite poll debacles in a row in the recent past in the State and elsewhere in the country, the Congress in Assam and former Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi have failed to learn the tricks of the trade.
Reacting to Tarun Gogoi and State CLP leader Debabrata Saikia’s shrap reaction to the AIUDF president’s appeal for an alliance between the Congress and the AIUDF in the 2019 Lok Sabha election so as to stop the BJP upsurge, Ajmal today said in a statement: “After a series of poll debacles in the recent past the Congress party is on the verge of extinction. However, such a long spell of defeats in polls has failed to make the party and former Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi learn the tricks of the trade. I have raised the proposal for an alliance between the Congress and the AIUDF only to stop the upsurge of the BJP in Assam. In the polls in the recent past, I did appeal to all like-minded parties to fight the polls united against the BJP. My appeal failed to materialize at that time only because of the negative stand taken by the Congress, especially by then Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. Gogoi has been making negative comments against the AIUDF since its inception. Branding the AIUDF as a commul party, Gogoi indirectly helped the BJP to woo voters. Despite ruling the State for three consecutive terms, the strength of the Congress has been dropped to 26 from 70 MLAs in the State Assembly this year. However, such a humiliation is not enough for Gogoi to know the ground reality. The Congress is facing such debacles in other States in the country as well. In UP, it has been confined to only seven seats.”
Ajmal cautioned the Congress and said: “The AIUDF has nothing to learn from the Congress on commulism. The Congress has been branding us as commul. The leaders of the Congress need to learn the definition of ‘commulism’ first. Since independence, the Congress has been blackmailing the minority people with the commul card. It’s high time the Congress changed its thought. It should know that its mantra has been obsolete now. The AIUDF, on the other hand, is a party that has full faith in the Constitution of India. We believe in secularism. Our appeal to all like-minded parties for an electoral alliance still stands.”