With Assembly elections in Assam scheduled for next year, the State’s Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi Friday met the Congress president Sonia Gandhi to raise the impending danger of communal polarisation.
The political atmosphere in the State is getting intense with BJP president Amit Shah already camping in Guwahati, canvassing voters by invoking the issue of “illegal immigration.”
Mr. Gogoi and his son Tarun, who is also a Member of Parliament, met Ms. Gandhi on the sidelines of Friday’s Lok Sabha session, said a senior Congress leader privy to the meeting. According to him, Mr. Gogoi asked Ms. Sonia’s if he should inform President Pranab Mukherjee about the rising social tensions in the State.
Ms. Sonia, according to the Congress leader, gave him a go and asked him to stage a protest outside the Governor’s house on Saturday.
Governor's row The Governor, PB Acharya, kicked up a controversy a week ago by saying that India is only meant for Indians and Indian Muslims are “free to go to Pakistan.”
The statement did not go down well with the ruling Congress since it hurts the sentiments of Assam’s 30 per cent Muslims — a population which has always been a game-changer in the elections.
Alliance talks Ms. Sonia and Mr. Gogoi also discussed whether to forge an alliance with Assam’s millionaire perfume baron, Badruddin Ajmal, whose party All India United Democratic Front won 18 Assembly seats in the last election.
“There will no Bihar-like alliance but the Congress may have some pre-poll understanding with Ajmal,” the leader said.
