The Congress and the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) on Wednesday, named senior journalist Ajit Bhuyan as their Rajya Sabha candidate from Assam, The Telegraph India reported. The Rajya Sabha elections will be held for 55 seats on March 26, 2020.
Known for his stand against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), he was nominated as a neutral candidate by the Opposition. What makes this nomination significant is the fact that though there was internal opposition for an alliance with each other, it has brought them close. Congress insiders said that the anti – CAA movement is the glue which could see the two parties working together in the Assembly Polls too.
Though there were candidates like party spokesperson Durga Das Boro, Vice-president Bishnu Prasad, All India Mahila Congress president Sushmita Dev, advocate Santanu Borthakur and Sikhar Sarma, a Guwahati-based professor in the running, Bhuyan’s long standing experience in public life – as a journalist and an intellectual, worked in his favour.
PCC president Ripun Bora told reporters in Delhi on Wednesday, “Since neither the Congress nor the AIUDF has the numbers to win the seat on their own, we decided to support Bhuyan. Both the parties wanted a neutral, secular candidate who can take the anti-CAA movement forward.”
AIUDF leader Hafiz Bashir Ahmed Kasimi said the party decided to support Bhuyan as he has been one of the prominent voices against the CAA and BJP’s “politics of communal polarisation”.
Debabrata Saikia too urged the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) to vote for Bhuyan and prove its anti-CAA stand.
Bhuyan said, “I am happy to get the opportunity. Since I have been raising my voice against the CAA and violation of Assam Accord, I am sure that if I win, I can raise the concern of our people over CAA inside Parliament.”
Alleging that Bhuyan only wanted to enter the cabinet, Senior Cabinet Minister and Assam’s Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said, “It is clear that many of the intellectuals were actually involved in the anti-CAA agitation for a Rajya Sabha seat. They didn’t have any logic to counter the CAA.”
“If Ajit Bhuyan, a veteran journalist, is being supported by the AIUDF, this proves that the intellectuals have led the anti-CAA protests only to get a RS seat. A section of the intellectuals were carrying out anti-CAA protests at the behest of AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal and the protest was done for securing a Upper House berth. Bhuyan has decided to surrender before Ajmal, he added alleging, “Former Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi has surrendered before Ajmal and fundamentalist forces. They think that in 2021, Gogoi will be the chief minister and Ajmal will be the deputy chief minister.”
Supreme Court lawyer Upamanyu Hazarika and leader of the anti-influx group Prabajan Virodhi Manch criticized Bhuyan too. He said, “When he (Bhuyan) dresses up his candidature as representative of the sentiments and interests of the indigenous people, it turns into hypocrisy as his candidature is sponsored by the Congress and the AIUDF. Bhuyan’s claim that he is representing indigenous interests and sentiments is hypocritical and self-serving.”
Meanwhile, it is being reported that another senior journalist Atanu Bhuyan will be contesting the RS elections and he is likely to be the BJP’s third candidate where is to come face-to-face with Ajit Kumar Bhuyan.
Related:
Is Amit Shah’s LS speech about Delhi violence a chilling sign of things to come?