AIUDF Rafiqul Islam calls Congress “unreliable”, talks of contesting alone in LS 2024

The All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) announced that it would run alone in the Lok Sabha elections scheduled for 2024, defying the political need for a “united Opposition” to fight against the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party.

Due to the fact that the Congress is “no longer a reliable” party, the party declared it would run for some of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam alone. Rafiqul Islam, an AIUDF MLA and the party’s general secretary, told ANI that while the party has considered running candidates for at least seven to eight seats in the state’s 2024 Lok Sabha election, a final decision has not yet been taken.

“Now we are preparing for the general election alone. Earlier, except for one election, we had fought all the elections alone. We fought the previous Assam assembly election by joining hands with Congress and a few other opposition parties,” Rafiqul Islam said. 
“Since 2006, we have been fighting the elections alone. In the 2014 general election, we won three seats—Karimganj, Barpeta, and Dhubri, and in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, our party supremo, Badruddin Ajmal, won the Dhubri seat. This time, we are trying to register a victory at least three seats, and we have targeted five-six more,” Rafiqul Islam said.

He added that the party is getting ready to run for these seats and that the final decision would be made at a meeting of the core committee.

Rafiqul Islam also stated that the parties are not unified despite their calls for cooperation in the battle against the BJP.

“If the Congress party fights against the AIUDF in Assam, Mamata in West Bengal, Kejriwal in Delhi, and KCR in Telanga, then the BJP will benefit. Congress should change its character. To fight against the BJP, it should sacrifice this and go with the opposition parties,” he said.

The AIUDF MLA criticised Congress and claimed that Assam Congress was no longer a dependable party since it had consistently misled AIUDF.

“In the last assembly election in Assam, Congress’ seats went up only because of AIUDF. Soon after the elections, it ended the alliance with the AIUDF and even in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Congress was benefitted with two seats in Kaliabor and Nagaon only because of the AIUDF,” he added.

He claimed that the Congress is planning to run alone in the 2019 general elections since it is no longer a trustworthy party.