BJP will be main opposition in 2016 state polls: Badruddin Ajmal

GUWAHATI: Claiming that Congress is fast losing ground in various parts of the country, All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) chief Badruddin Ajmal said BJP would be his party’s main opponent in the 2016 assembly election in the state.
Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the Assam State Jamiat meeting here on Thursday, Ajmal said people in the state, like their compatriots elsewhere, have started moving away from Congress.Referring to Congress’s successive electoral debacles since the Lok Sabha polls in May, Ajmal said he no longer considered Congress to be AIUDF’s main adversary in Assam.
The AIUDF president’s statement acknowledges BJP’s growing presence in the state. In the Lok Sabha election, BJP, for the first time, won 7 of Assam’s 14 seats, its highest tally in the state. Congress managed to win only three seats in the parliamentary polls, while AIUDF also won an equal number of seats. Ajmal’s party is considered to be a major threat to Congress’ traditional vote base of minority voters in the state.
“We are not at all concerned with Congress. Our contest in the coming assembly elections will be with BJP,” Ajmal said. Members of AIUDF, however, ruled out any possibility of an alliance with the saffron party. “Our anti Congress and anti-BJP stand is clear. Our party was born in opposition to Congress and we will maintain that ideological stance. The question of teaming up with BJP does not arise at all,” an AIUDF leader said.