Badruddin Ajmal andSherman Ali Ahmed

Guwahati, Nov. 18: The controversy over horse-trading in the February Rajya Sabha elections in Assam has resurfaced with suspended AIUDF legislator Sherman Ali Ahmed accusing party chief Badruddin Ajmal of being involved in it.

Ahmed said there was enough evidence to prove Ajmal’s involvement in the horse-trading to facilitate the Congress win in the elections.

“Soon after the Rajya Sabha elections results in February, I had demanded an inquiry to expose the MLAs who were involved in horse-trading. Ajmal saheb agreed and assured me of a probe. As I am a disciplined soldier of the party I waited for the inquiry. But more than nine months later, the AIUDF has not conducted any inquiry, which only indicates that the party chief was involved in the misdeed. I challenge Ajmal saheb to institute the inquiry. But he does not have moral courage to do so,” Ahmed told The Telegraph today.

In the February elections for the Upper House, the Congress-BPF backed candidates Bhubaneswar Kalita, Sanjay Singh (from UP) and Biswajit Daimary won all the three seats despite not having the numbers, while the Opposition AGP, AIUDF and BJP-backed Independent candidate Haidar Hussain lost.

The winning trio were also sitting MPs then.

Six votes, including five from the Opposition, were found invalid while an AIUDF MLA (Ataur Rahman Mazarbhuiya) was absent.

After the election, Mazarbhuiya, who was suspended from the party for being absent in the elections, alleged that money had changed hands between senior Congress leaders and AIUDF boss Badruddin Ajmal in Mizoram prior to the polls.

While the leader of AIUDF Legislature Party Hafiz Basir Ahmed Qafimi refuted the charges of Ahmed, people from different walks of life feel that the issue is evidence of the degradation of moral values in politics.

“There were allegations and counter-allegations on horse- trading. An AGP leader had even moved the CID, seeking a probe into charges of horse-trading. The status of the case is not known. Now, a suspended AIUDF legislator has again raked up the issue. The question remains as who is telling the truth,” a lecturer of political science in a city college said.