Candidates' selection deferred; Cong may ally with CPI for Assam polls

NEW DELHI, April 1: The Congress has decided to review its strategy of going alone in the Assembly polls in the State and is toying with a proposal to have poll pact with the CPI. The party's selection process has been deferred and will now be held later this month, a top leader of the party told The Assam Tribune. It was a bewildered Assam Congress leadership that met here last evening for an emergent meeting of the executive committee to discuss the developing situation in the wake of reports of the ruling AGP and the BJP planning to join hands. According to a senior party leader they are immediately going to finalise the candidates for those constituencies, which the Congress plans to fight on its own, deferring the selection of candidates of the rest until seat-sharing arrangements are finalised. The State Election Committee that met this afternoon continued its sittings till late in the evening and candidates for bulk of the seats mainly for those in Upper Assam, Barak Valley were short-listed, sources said. Meanwhile, the party has made up its mind to explore the possibility of forging an alliance with the CPI. A Congress leader said they are now awaiting the outcome of the AGP-BJP alliance parleys before they make their next move. The other parties the Congress plans to woo include the minority outfit like the United Minority Front (UMF) and smaller regional parties that would stand to lose from the AGP's alliance with the BJP. The APCC president, Tarun Gogoi told this newspaper that they are keeping their options on alliance open and would like to wait for the picture to be a little clearer. He confirmed that the selection of candidates for few seats has been deferred. Reacting to the latest development, Gogoi claimed that the AGP-BJP alliance would favour them, as there would be consolidation of minority votes in their favour. "I have been proven right as I have all along been maintaining that AGP and BJP would tie-up at the last moment" he asserted. On the other hand, for the Congress the idea of aligning with the Left parties would be hard to sell to the High Command because of party forming a common platform of anti-Left forces with Mamata Banerjee against the ruling Left Front government in West Bengal. The fact that the two States are going to poll together has further complicated matters. Perhaps this is one of the reasons, why the Assam Congress has spoken about aligning with the CPI(M). Sources said at the meeting yesterday several leaders pointed out that it would help the party if it instead formed a common alliance with the Trinamool Congress. Such an alliance would definitely send right signals to the Bengali Hindus, considered traditional BJP supporters. Meanwhile, the decision of the Congress to deny tickets to at least 40 per cent of the sitting MLAs saw several of them including Wajid Ali Chaudhury, Shahidul Islam and former State Minister, Rashidul Haque among others approaching AICC president, Sonia Gandhi. The party has, according to sources, decided to nominate candidates with clean image. About 30 seats are likely to go to the minority community, about 12 seats to the women candidates and about 15 seats to the Youth Congress among others. The crowd of Congressmen who had come seeking tickets have started leaving the Capital in view of the decision of the party to defer the finalisation of the candidates. The party leadership also told its members that it would announce the list of candidates only at the last hour. The party is now expected to approach the central screening committee around April 20 and the central election committee is likely to meet thereafter to finalise the list of candidates, sources said.