Parvez Ahmed speaks to reporters in Guwahati on Tuesday. Picture by UB Photos

Guwahati, March 11: The son of former President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, Parvez Ahmed, today met AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal ostensibly to discuss the issue of contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Barpeta in Assam on the party’s ticket.

Though Ahmed termed his meeting a “courtesy call” to cherish their long-standing family relationship, he gave broad hints of fighting the general elections from Barpeta on the ticket of a “like-minded” party like the AIUDF.

Ahmed, a renowned Delhi-based physician and a Congress member, was denied a ticket by his party to contest the polls from Barpeta.

His mother, Begum Abida Ahmed, contested the Lok Sabha elections from Barpeta in 1979 defying an All Assam Students’ Union (AASU)’s call for a boycott during the Assam Agitation.

“Contesting the elections independently will be the last option for me. I want to fight the poll on behalf of a party whose ideology does not go against my conscience. My late father, who eventually became President, fought the elections from Barpeta. So I have a special attachment with this place. I will take the final decision of contesting the polls within the next 48 hours,” Ahmed told this correspondent before he left for New Delhi this evening.

Incidentally, the ruling Congress government named the state’s fifth medical college and hospital in Barpeta as Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College and Hospital.

Visibly disappointed with the Congress’s list of candidates in Assam for the elections, Ahmed said he does not understand his party’s logic of giving tickets to non-performing MPs.

He even raised questions on as how the sitting Congress MP from Barpeta — Ismail Hussain — managed to get the ticket this time again to contest the poll.

“I have also reservation on nomination of Gaurav Gogoi, son of chief minister Tarun Gogoi as the Congress candidate from Kaliabor constituency. Gaurav is a nice and decent young man. But that cannot be the criteria for his nomination. What is the contribution of Gaurav that make him eligible to contest the poll? I am fed up with the whims and fancies of the political bosses,” he said.

Ahmed said he was seriously thinking of quitting the Congress.

The doctor-turned-politician was closely associated with the Tarun Gogoi government’s much-published project to conduct free open-heart surgeries in Assam.

Though the AIUDF leadership was tight-lipped on Ahmed’s candidature, sources said he had shown interest to help the party in the elections.

Candidate list

The AIUDF today announced the first list of two candidates to contest the Lok Sabha polls. While party chief and sitting MP Badruddin Ajmal will contest the elections from Dhubri, Radheshyam Biswam will be the party’s candidate from Karimganj constituency.