Four Opposition parties in Assam led by the Congress Friday announced that they will jointly campaign for the upcoming assembly election, seeking to seal their alliance though some other parties who have been part of these discussions were missing from this joint announcement.
This announcement was made jointly on Friday by Assam Congress president Gaurav Gogoi, Asom Jatiya Parishad president Lurinjyoti Gogoi, All Party Hill Leaders Conference chief Jones Ingti Kathar and CPI(M) state secretary Suprakash Talukdar. Notably, the Raijor Ral and its chief Akhil Gogoi, who has long been in talks over this potential alliance but has frequently been in friction with the Congress over the question of seat sharing, were absent from this announcement. However, all four leaders stated that they are “hopeful” that more parties will join to broaden the alliance.
Making this announcement, Gaurav Gogoi said that there is not much time left for the elections, and that the parties will soon begin joint campaign programmes.
“Time is limited. There are just about 30 days in hand. These 30 days are very valuable. Even though for a long time, various political parties and their representatives and leaders have said that alliance is required, we have not been able to campaign together as one among the people as we should. The main reason is that we have been busy in our districts, our booth committees, booth level agents, and we also had to give a lot of importance to the special revision in the state. But now, we spoke a short while back that coming together as one and taking to the people the things we have been saying in front of the camera is required now,” he said, adding that a schedule of joint campaign programmes in different parts of the states is likely to be created soon.
However, this grouping is yet to announce seat sharing arrangement. The Congress has already released a first list of 42 candidates. There are 126 seats in the Assam assembly.
Lurinjyoti Gogoi said: “Today, we want to give the public a clear and strong message that we have started the journey of unity to remove the communal BJP in the 2026 election. These four parties have come today and we are hopeful that other parties will also join us,” he said.
Amid public statements by Raijor Dal leaders expressing unhappiness over an inability to arrive at a seat-sharing arrangement – the Raijor Dal itself has also released a first list of 11 candidates and both parties have fielded candidates from the Margherita constituency – the leaders refused to comment on why the Raijor Dal was not on board for Friday’s announcement.
“We have all expressed the wish that our forum grow wider. We are all hopeful and we invite everyone to our journey,” said Gaurav Gogoi.
The Raijor Dal is yet to respond to this development.
Attempts to stitch together an opposition alliance have been taking place since March 2023 under the leadership of former Assam Congress president Bhupen Borah, who quit the party and joined the BJP last month. This ‘United Opposition Front’ had at one point comprised as many as 16 anti-BJP parties – state units of national parties as well as the regional parties opposed to the BJP and its allies.
