Wazed Ali Choudhury named CLP leader

Kangkan KalitaGuwahati: The AICC on Tuesday night named senior party leader Wazed Ali Choudhury as its legislature party leader amid a debate whether the Congress leader in the House should be a Hindu or Muslim.BJP has been alleging that Congress was confined to Muslim majority seats in Assam in the recent election. Lone Hindu MLA among their 19 MLAs, Joy Prakash Das has been named as deputy leader, following AICC president’s approval.“Congress President has approved the proposal for the appointment of Leader and Deputy Leader of the Congress Legislature Party in Assam, as follows, with immediate effect,” stated an official release from AICC, which named Choudhury and Das and leader and deputy leader, respectively.Choudhury thanked the Congress high command for putting trust in him. “Our party has kept faith in me and I will try to discharge my duties with responsibility. I also thank our MLAs,” said Choudhury. He especially thanked Assam PCC president Gaurav Gogoi for getting the new role.Das, on the other hand, said that he will remain vocal and voice for the people of his constituency and the state inside the assembly as well as outside.While Choudhury represents Birsing Jarua constituency in lower Assam, Das represents Nowboicha seat from upper Assam region from where Congress was routed this time.The 2023 delimitation drive has been blamed by the Congress for reducing the chance of Congress winning more seats. The number of Muslim majority assembly seats in Assam got reduced from around 35 to 22 after delimitation. While the Muslim majority seats across lower, central and south Assam were traditional votebanks of Congress, in recent years, many were won by Badruddin Ajmal’s AIUDF. But this time, AIUDF has almost been routed in Assam. Though the number of Congress MLAs too declined, they won most of these 22 seats.