 "Assam assembly polls: Assam's youngest major party takes on Congress in Salmara South")
Salmara South Assembly constituency saw AIUDF chief Badaruddin Ajmal pitted against Siraj Hussain of the BJP and Wazed Ali Choudhury of the Congress.
Salmara South, situated in the Dhubri district, went to the polls on April 11; wherein, out of the total 1,57,525 registered voters, an exceptionally high 93.19% came out to vote.
In the 2014 General elections, Maulana Badruddin Ajmal took the Parliamentary constituency, defeating Congress’ Wazed Ali Choudhury. Ajmal will be hoping that the votes will swing in his favour again.
Strengths:
The Salmara South Assembly Constituency is held by Ajmal’s son Abdur Rahman Ajmal, who won it in the 2011 polls after defeating Wazed Ali Choudhury.
The elder Ajmal had originally won the Assembly seat in 2006, once again at the expense of Choudhury.
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Choudhary held the seat from 2009 to 2011, after Ajmal’s son Abdur Rahman first contested for the Assembly seat.
The elder Ajmal, a Mumbai-based perfume merchant who owns over 500 outlets across countries, is a formidable foe.
Just six months after AIUDF was formed, the party secured 10 seats in the 2006 Assembly polls. That tally has only gone up, with the party securing 18 seats in the 126-member Assembly in 201.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, out of the 14 parliamentary seats, the Congress bagged three, the BJP bagged seven, and Ajmal’s party emerged as Congress’ equal.
Ajmal will be hoping for a repeat of his performance in 2014.
AIUDF has emerged as a major player in the state and according to reports has a good hold on the state’s Muslim populace; although, Ajmal has made it clear that his is not a party that caters to only one community.
“We have non-Muslim MLAs and our working president is a tribal. People go by my appearance – beard and skull cap -- to pass judgement, but few parties are as broad-based and secular as ours,” Ajmal was quoted as saying in media reports.
The Congress in particular will be weary as Ajmal’s party will cut into its share of votes from the Muslim community — which account for 40%-80% of the population in 35 Assembly seats in the state.
Muslims have drifted towards the AIUDF since Ajmal floated it against the backdrop of the Supreme Court scrapping the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act after describing Bangladeshi influx as a "silent external aggression" of Assam.
Given that the second phase of the polls saw large numbers of people voting in Muslim majority areas, Ajmal might be looking at another win for himself and his party.
In the current Assembly polls, of the 10 Assembly segments of the Lok Sabha constituency of Dhubri, represented by Badruddin Ajmal, eight saw over 90% voting.
While analysts feel that Ajmal sees himself as a kingmaker in the event of a hung Assembly, BJP’s star campaigner, Himanta Biswa Sarma, disagrees, saying that Ajmal sees himself, instead, as the king.
With the BJP pushing hard on the issue of illegal migrants from Bangladesh and the Muslim community having to pick between a Congress which faces a 15-year incumbency and the unknown, Ajmal might well emerge as a bigger player than before once the votes have been counted.
Weaknesses:
By fielding him for the fifth time, the Congress has shown that it has faith in Wazed Ali Choudhury.
Having squared off in Assembly and Lok Sabha polls, Ajmal and Choudhury consider each other arch-rivals.
According to reports, this time, the socio-economic condition, which has remained unchanged over the years, of the people of the constituency could become a deciding factor.
The division along communal lines being witnessed in the state and BJP’s push for acting against illegal migrants could also play in Congress’s favour.
Additionally, Choudhury is not an outsider for the Muslim community and did manage to defeat Ajmal junior in 2009.
The Congress had tried to position itself as the only real secular choice in the state and the hitherto unseen polarisation in Assam could make Muslim voters favour Congress candidates in a bid to ensure that a known party and known face (Gogoi) continue to rule the state.