Will analyse what went wrong in Assam: AIUDF chief Ajmal 

AIUDF led by Maulana Badruddin Ajmal emerges as a strong political force in Assam, challenging traditional parties.

The outcome of Mandate 2024 was a bitter pill for the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) in Nagaland and the National People’s Party (NPP) in Meghalaya’s Tura Lok Sabha seats.

These were constituencies where the NDPP and the NPP had a stranglehold for years. But the party that was hit the hardest was the Assam-based All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) led by Maulana Badruddin Ajmal, a perfume baron-turned-politician.

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The AIUDF, born after the Supreme Court scrapped the allegedly pro-foreigners Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act in 2005, sought to do what its predecessor, the United Minority Front could not — make the Bengali-origin Muslims a political force.

The party went from 10 seats in the 2006 Assembly elections to 18 in 2011 before the ‘Modi wave’ saw its tally dipping to 13 in 2016. The party’s victories, mostly in the Muslim-dominated constituencies, were seen as an outcome of a shift in the minority vote from the Congress and former Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi’s tendency to ignore Mr. Ajmal.

The Congress has traditionally been seen as a beneficiary of two large “vote banks” — the Muslims who constitute more than 34% of Assam’s population and the Adivasis or “tea tribes” who comprise almost 20% of the voters.

The AIUDF, Congress and some smaller parties formed a pre-poll alliance before the 2021 Assam polls. The alliance helped the AIUDF more than the Congress as it won 16 of the 20 seats it contested.