New Delhi: A couple of days after a delegation of the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) led by its chief Maulana Badruddin Ajmal met Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar at his residence in Patna, AIUDF general secretary and chief spokesperson Aminul Islam on Sunday said the party decided to join the Opposition unity to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Speaking on the meeting with Nitish Kumar, Aminul Islam said, “The Bihar Chief Minister invited us to his state, so a four-member delegation from our party went to Patna to meet him. We talked about how to fight against BJP and take along all the regional and like-minded secular parties to unseat the saffron party from power in the 2024 general election. We also met Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav. Our main agenda is to remove the BJP from power and we have decided to place one candidate from the opposition each against a BJP candidate.”
On being asked about the problems with the Assam Congress, Islam said, “We don't know why the Assam Congress broke the alliance with us. They have alleged that we did cross-voting during the Rajya Sabha elections. Now the Congress is forging alliance with smaller and newly formed political parties, the parties which have never won any election.”
The AIUDF delegation that met the Bihar Chief Minister comprised its chief Maulana Badruddin Ajmal, party general secretary and Mankachar MLA Aminul Islam, Sonai MLA Karim Uddin Barbhuiya, and Dhubri MLA Nazrul Haque.
The meeting lasted for more than an hour and later Ajmal thanked the Bihar Chief Minister for his efforts in trying to unite the opposition forces from across the country.
After the meeting with Nitish Kumar, Ajmal on Saturday also met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar in Mumbai with an aim of floating an anti-BJP front.
Meanwhile, the Assam Congress, in a bid to put up a combined challenge against the saffron party at the centre, hosted a meeting of 11 anti-BJP political parties in Guwahati on April 27.
In the meeting, the Congress urged all the like-minded opposition parties to set aside their differences and join hands in the interest of the broader goal to topple the ruling BJP from power in the Lok Sabha polls.
All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Jitendra Singh and Assam Congress chief Bhupen Kumar Borah were also present at the meeting.
Besides the Congress, the other parties present in the meeting were JD(U), NCP, RJD, Trinamool Congress, regional parties Akhil Gogoi-led Raijor Dal (RD), Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP), Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), and Jatiya Dal Assam (JDA).