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Seven years ago, Assam chief minister and Congress leader Tarun Gogoi publicly remarked: "Who is Ajmal?". He was referring to the challenge from Mumbai-based perfume tycoon Maulana Badruddin Ajmal, who had returned to his home state, floated the Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF) and damaged the Congress consistently in the northeastern state since then, especially the party’s Muslim minority base.
Today, the Congress has reached out to the very same Ajmal, acknowledging that in its effort to add allies ahead of the 2014 general election, everyone is important. Assam sends only 14 seats to the Lok Sabha, but “in the prevailing atmosphere, every seat is important”, said a top Congress leader.
The Congress has already reached a deal with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, supporting the party chief Shibu Soren’s son Hemant Soren as chief minister of Jharkhand (14 Lok Sabha seats). This is entirely with an eye on the Lok Sabha elections. Unofficial talks are being held with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) even though the latter’s electoral acceptability is coming down (TRS lost the last few byelections by big margins, for the Legislative Council, even in the Telangana region).
Over the weekend, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati reached out to the Brahmins at a caste meeting in Lucknow, where she used the platform to tell the Muslims that she would never support Narendra Modi’s candidature as Prime Minister.
New alignments in Bihar seem inevitable. On July 15, the Ranchi High Court will give a verdict in the two-decade old fodder scam case. If former chief minister and leader of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Lalu Prasad, is convicted and hauled off to jail, what position the Congress would take will have to be watched carefully.
Analysts acknowledge that in the war to make allies, the Congress has first-mover advantage, even as the Bharatiya Janata Party struggles to resolve internal dissensions.
