Jailed anti- Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) activist Akhil Gogoi will be the chief ministerial candidate of a new regional political party, his peasant rights group Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) has said.
The announcement followed an initiative by the Opposition Congress to form a “grand alliance” with the All India United Democratic Front and other “like-minded” parties to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies in the 2021 Assembly poll.
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“We have decided to form a political party and contest the next State election with Akhil Gogoi as our CM face,” KMSS president Bhasco De Saikia told journalists on Saturday evening.
He added the name of the party would be decided after Mr. Gogoi is released from prison.
Mr. Gogoi has been in prison since December 2019 after the National Investigation Agency booked him on charges of sedition and under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for allegedly link with the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist). He was also accused of inciting violence during the anti-CAA protests that led to the death of at least six people in Assam.
The KMSS hopes Mr. Gogoi would be released within two months.
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Mr. Saikia said their party would be inclusive in outlook and leaving out no community despite swearing by regionalism. He, however, ruled out any pre- or post-poll understanding with any “national or communal party”.
The KMSS and the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) have been spearheading the anti-CAA movement in Assam as two separate blocs. While the former claims more than 70 social and community-based organisations are with it, the latter has been citing some 30 such groups.
The KMSS beat the AASU in announcing its political plan. The latter had on August 19 joined hands with the Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad to form an advisory panel for taking the anti-CAA movement forward.
The two groups stopped short of announcing a new political front but said they were exploring the idea with the objective of safeguarding the constitutional, administrative and political rights of the indigenous peoples of Assam.
For the KMSS, a political party would be the second such venture. It had formed the Gana Mukti Sangram, Asom in March 2015 for “changing the capitalist system of India”.
Mr. Gogoi had in 2017 announced that his party would contest the 2021 Assembly election. KMSS leaders said the new political party would be unlike the earlier one.
