Guwahati: The All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) chief and incumbent Dhubri MP, Badruddin Ajmal, is poised for a humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha elections. According to Election Commission of India data as of 4.30 pm, Rockybul Hussain of the Congress was running ahead in this predominantly Muslim battleground by over 7 lakh votes (7,08,913).
Ajmal, who was vying for a fourth term in Dhubri, was confident of his win from the minority territory. Since its formation in 2005, the AIUDF had been rallying on issues concerning the Miya (Bengali Muslims) population, even as his politics failed to appeal the Khilonjia (indigenous Assamese in the state) Muslims. Notably, Dhubri is the sole Lok Sabha seat in Assam with a Muslim majority.
After the 2023 delimitation, Bengali Muslims no longer represent the majority of the electorate in Assam. Ajmal’s influence over the electorate, too, has waned over the years, as evident in the resentment on the ground against “communal politics”.
Speaking to ThePrint, noted writer Harekrishna Deka said Ajmal used to win elections on a single point agenda — “as the protector of Assam’s Muslim minority of Bengal origin.”
“He (Ajmal) also started casting a spell on the ordinary Muslim immigrants posing as a faith healer — the image propagated by his agents. But his image suffered when he failed to serve the community effectively. He further tried to reap political benefits by reportedly maintaining a secret understanding with the state CM, but it served him no good. Rather, he was left politically exposed,” he added.
The Dhubri constituency, with an estimated 26 lakh voters —70 percent of whom are Bengali-speaking Muslims — is pivotal in determining the political fate of both the AIUDF and the Congress in the region, according to political analysts.
The AIUDF has been influential in the migrant Muslim areas of lower, central and southern Assam. Ajmal’s defeat, which appears likely, could seriously impact the AIUDF’s prospects in the electoral landscape of the state, but keep the Congress afloat in the 2026 assembly elections.
“If Rockybul Hussain wins, it could well be the first step for the Congress towards regaining the lost ground in lower Assam,” a political analyst told ThePrint.
Ajmal’s AIUDF is the third largest party in the Assam legislative assembly after the BJP and the Congress. Three years after it was formed, the party was relaunched as a national party in New Delhi in 2009.
In 2009, Ajmal won the Lok Sabha elections from Dhubri, which used to be a Congress bastion. The AIUDF had since grown in strength while the Congress lost support among the Bengali Muslims.
For decades, the Congress had been influential in Dhubri and the adjoining Goalpara and Barpeta districts before slowly losing ground to the AIUDF.
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From partners to arch-rivals
Over the past few years, the relationship between the AIUDF and the Congress, once allies in Assam, had soured — turning them into bitter rivals.
The AIUDF joined the Congress-led Grand Alliance in 2021 out of strategic necessity, but the partnership was short-lived, leading to the defection of key Congress figures to the BJP and disappointing outcomes in the assembly elections.
Since then, the Congress has time and again accused the AIUDF of being a “mouthpiece for the BJP,” while Ajmal alleged that the Congress leaders were “hand-in-glove with Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.”
In August 2021, the Congress broke its alliance with the AIUDF, accusing the party of “continuous and mysterious praise” for the BJP. The charge stemmed from Ajmal’s brother and party MLA Sirajuddin Ajmal’s praise for Sarma and his work.
It was only the BJP that gained from the Congress-AIUDF alliance when the state saw intense polarisation.
This time around, Assam CM Sarma had also campaigned in Dhubri for BJP’s regional ally, Asom Gana Parishad’s (AGP) candidate Jawed Islam, though he categorically maintained that people in this border seat had either been voting for the Congress or the AIUDF.
This is an updated version of the report.