Former MP and senior Congress leader Kirip Chaliha speaks at the news conference in Guwahati on Sunday. Picture by UB Photos

Guwahati, May 25: The Congress’s failure to prevent the shift of minority votes to the AIUDF and addressing the concerns of indigenous groups were among the key factors, which led to the Lok Sabha poll debacle, senior leader Kirip Chaliha said today.

Chaliha, who lost to BJP’s Ramen Deka from the Mangaldoi parliamentary constituency, warned that the shift of the AGP votes to the BJP in the recent election could be a permanent phenomenon and may even make the Congress irrelevant in Assam in the future.

“I had warned that the AIUDF’s birth in 2005 would bring trouble for the Congress in the future. We could have made an understanding with the minority organisations. Instead the statement, ‘Who is Badruddin?’ (referring to Tarun Gogoi’s statement in 2006), shifted us towards a soft Hindutva stance. But we have seen in state like Madhya Pradesh how soft Hindutva was soon replaced by a hardline Hindutva stance. For the first time, the BJP received more vote share than us in 79 Assembly segments, while the AIUDF got more in 24 segments. If we continue to neglect this, the Congress may become irrelevant in the future,” Chaliha said, while talking to reporters here today.

The ruling Congress won three of the 14 seats, down from the seven it had won in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. The BJP bagged seven seats and the AIUDF won three, while former Ulfa “commander” Hira Sarania, an Independent candidate, was elected from the Kokrajhar seat. Assam is scheduled to hold Assembly elections in 2016.

Chaliha’s assessment comes at a time when the Congress is yet to gauge the reasons for its poll rout. Asked why he did not discuss the issues in the party forum, Chaliha said, “I have raised these issues from time to time and if required, I will take them up up again.” His statements come a couple of days after health and education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma questioned the party’s strategy ahead of the Lok Sabha election, including handling the issues concerning tea garden workers and the arrest of KMSS leader Akhil Gogoi. Sarma had openly demanded change in leadership and said he had no faith in chief minister Tarun Gogoi’s leadership. Many in the dissident camp demanded that Gogoi should resign and projected Sarma as the new chief minister.

“The Hindu Bengali voters have shifted their allegiance because of the way we handled the D-voter issue and their harassment over citizenship. Similar was the case with the Nepali community. For the first time, tea garden votes have drifted away from us. We miserably failed to maintain our connectivity with the young leaders in the tea gardens regarding their issues,” Chaliha, 61, said.

“I faced tough questions from leaders of the Bodo and Koch Rajbongshi communities regarding the identity issue. We failed to accept and recognise some groups and this silently created suspicion among them on our party’s stand about their problems. How can we expect to get votes if we don’t even try to understand the problems of the indigenous groups?” Chaliha questioned.

“It’s not just the Modi wave but our failure to address the issues affecting the middle class and the educated section cost us too,” he added.

Chaliha, who lost both in the Assembly (from Hajo) and Lok Sabha elections, however, drew consolation from the fact that he had received the highest votes (4.63 lakh) among the 13 Congress candidates, who contested the Lok Sabha polls.

Chaliha, however, did not make his stand clear when asked about the demand for changing the chief minister and the party leadership. “The chief minister had a discussion with me after the election results were declared, following which he offered to resign to the high command. It was his decision and others should not make statements on the issue,” Chaliha said, ostensibly referring to the comments made by both the dissidents and the pro-Gogoi camps regarding Gogoi’s resignation.