AXOM POLITICAL PARTIES WOO MUSLIMS AHEAD OF ELECTIONS

Saturday, September 24, 2005-->Web posted at: 9/24/2005 1:11:13Source ::: IANS
Guwahati: The ruling Congress party in Assam has sounded the poll bugle ahead of next year’s assembly elections by hinting at the possibility of a pre-poll alliance with minority Muslim political parties.
“We are not ruling out the possibility of an alliance before the elections with Muslim or other minority political parties having secular and progressive credentials,” Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said.
Muslims in Assam, who account for about 30 per cent of the state’s 26 million people, have for decades been at the centre of electoral politics with the community holding the key in at least 40 of the 126 assembly constituencies. The Congress is worried this time with at least 12 influential linguistic and religious minority groups led by the Assam chapter of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Hind trying to float a political party. The Muslims and the Bengali-speaking linguistic minority voters in Assam were traditionally Congress supporters.
The decision to form a political party by the minority groups in the state comes in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in July to repeal the controversial Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) (IMDT) Act. The 22-year-old IMDT Act is now being replaced by the Foreigners Act of 1946.
Under the IMDT Act, the onus of proving one’s citizenship rested on the complainant rather than the accused, while it is just the reverse under the Foreigners Act. Assam Jamiat Ulema president Badruddin Azmal had gone on record saying the religious and linguistic minorities in Assam would not vote for the Congress as the party failed to defend the IMDT Act from being repealed.