Congress doesn't have guts to release the names of 22 legislators who cross-voted in the presidential elections: AIUDF MLA

The quandary surrounding the release of the list of names, who cross-voted during the presidential elections, is creating further momentum as the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) camp continue to raise finger on the Congress behind the entire incident.

Although, Assam Pradesh Congress Chief Bhupen Borah continue to speak of ‘traitors’ from the AIUDF brigade, however the Badruddin Ajmal led AIUDF party continue to deny any hand in the cross-voting incident. 

Meanwhile, highlighting the incident and the continuous mud-slinging that is taking place in the political arena, AIUDF MLA Ashraful while speaking to India Today NE exclusively said, “We have already stated earlier that none from AIUDF has voted for BJP. So obviously, Congressmen and their ally have voted in the recently concluded presidential election. Now we are receiving information that few of their legislators are planning to join BJP and AGP. I would appeal to them that don’t join BJP or AGP. They are anti-poor. They are all supporters of Adani and Ambani. Better all join AIUDF and set up a democratic alliance.”

Showing confidence that Congress won’t be able to release the names of the legislators who cross voted as All India Congress Committee In-charge, Jitendra Singh is yet to come to Assam as promised and look into the entire incident, Ashraful further states, “Even if Congress thinks that releasing the list will help open the truth then ok, but then they cannot release the list of the 22 MLAs until and unless Jitendra Singh doesn’t arrive here. It needs mention here that if they release the names of all 22 leaders, then the party will be dismantled after firing all the legislators named in the list. This way they will have to once again form a new party as no legislators will be left in the camp. This way Congress will never be able to release the list. But we demand that Bhupen Borah release the list and come out transparent to the public.”

It may be mentioned here that in the recently concluded presidential election of India, Assam emerged as the state where the highest number of opposition MLAs crossed voted for Droupadi Murmu, the NDA’s choice for the top constitutional post in the country. Murmu became the first tribal President and was elected on July 21, winning the support of 64.03 percent of the total vote value. Yashwant Sinha, who was the UPA’s choice, lost after three rounds of voting.

Over 120 MLAs from across state assemblies cross-voted in support of president-elect Droupadi Murmu, defying their parties’ stated support for opposition candidate Sinha. Of these, the highest tally was from Assam—22 opposition MLAs voted for Murmu. The president-elect also got the votes of 17 MPs from the Opposition camp.
On July 18, when the poll was held, India Today NE reported that several MLAs from Congress and the AIUDF cross-voted in favour of Murmu. The report was proved accurate by the results declared on July 21.