Strong on paper

Banking on strong alliance partners, the Congress is facing the assembly polls with confidence

- PRATUL SHARMA

The Congress, after allying with perfume baron Badruddin Ajmal’s All India United Democratic Front and Bodoland People’s Front, looks confident about the electoral arithmetic. Considering Assam’s complex ethnic equation, the party is having a no-frills campaign, as opposed to the BJP’s strategy of carpet-bombing the state with a stellar cast of leaders. Both alliances are on the opposite ends of the cultural debate over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, and are trying to get their chemistry right with the electorate.

For getting its Assam strategy right, the Congress is relying on success lessons from the last Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan assembly elections. This has resulted in five guarantees in the manifesto: New law to counter the CAA,₹2,000 per month to homemakers, daily wage of ₹365 for tea workers, five lakh new jobs, and 200 units of free electricity to every household. “These are guarantees, and not poll promises,” said Bobbeeta Sharma, general secretary, Assam Pradesh Congress Committee. “They will be fulfilled when the Congress comes to power.” If the CAA guarantee is aimed at addressing the culturally emotive issue, the other promises are inspired by welfare schemes the Congress implemented in states like Chhattisgarh.