Former Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday said the BJP did not have any moral right to question or defame the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) and the Congress for forming an alliance ahead of the March 26 Rajya Sabha elections.

Gogoi based his attack on the ruling BJP’s past alliances with the AIUDF for Rajya Sabha polls in the state but now sees the Badruddin Ajmal-led party as a communal party espousing the cause of illegal Bangladeshis.

The Congress and the AIUDF on Wednesday unanimously named senior journalist Ajit Bhuyan as their Rajya Sabha candidate from Assam. Elections to the three Rajya Sabha seats, which will fall vacant on April 9, are scheduled for March 26.

There are three candidates — the BJP’s Bhubaneswar Kalita, BPF’s Biswajit Daimary and the Congress-AIUDF’s Bhuyan for the three seats.

Unless they fail the scrutiny test or decide to withdraw, all three are set to enter the Upper House uncontested.

“Earlier the BJP and the AIUDF had formed an alliance nominating Jayanta Baruah in 2010 and then Haidar Hussain in 2014 for the Rajya Sabha as the common Opposition candidate. They had no issues with the AIUDF then. Why are they attacking the Congress-AIUDF alliance for the Rajya Sabha nomination now?” Gogoi asked.

Bhuyan, known for his vocal stand against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), was nominated as a neutral candidate by the Opposition. His long experience in public life as a journalist and an intellectual espousing regional interests also worked in his favour.

Gogoi further questioned: “If Ajmal is so communal then why was the BJP in alliance with the AIUDF while fielding Rajya Sabha candidates in 2010 and 2014? Were they not communal then? Who gave Himanta Biswa Sarma and the BJP the right to call the AIUDF a ‘communal party’? This proves the BJP now is indulging in divisive and communal politics.”

Following the alliance between the Congress and the AIUDF, BJP leaders claimed that both the parties had a very long tactical understanding and had always been in an alliance.

On Friday Gogoi called the BJP “coronavirus of communalism” because of growing communalism in the country under the BJP-led central government. He also said that the alliance was in for a long haul and may go beyond the 2021 Assembly polls.

On Friday, the Congress announced the pre-poll alliance with the AIUDF for the April 4 BTC polls also, with the party contesting 13 seats and the AIUDF seven.