Guwahati: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to kick off the poll campaign for her party of All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) in the state on April 5 from the minority-dominated constituency of Dhubri, some 258 km from the capital city.To be held on a Friday, considered to be a holy day for Islam, the AITC is aiming to gather a massive crowd as a large crowd is expected to be out for the Jumu'ah, the Friday prayer of Muslims.The AITC’s Assam unit chief Gopi Nath Das said, “Didi (Banerjee is popularly known as) will address the rally immediately after the Jumu’ah namaz. The rally will begin at around 1 PM and we are expecting around one lakh attendance in the rally.” The Jumu’ah, also known as Friday Prayer or congregational prayer, is a prayer that Muslims hold every Friday, just after noon.At least nine candidates from the AITC are in the fray this poll. The party has fielded its contenders from Karimganj (Chandan Das), Silchar (Hitabrata Roy), Dhubri (Nurul Islam Choudhury), Kokrajhar (Kamala Kanta Daimary), Barpeta (Ashahak Ali Dewan), Guwahati (Manoj Sharma), Mangaldai (Sudhendu Mohan Talukdar), Nagaon (Sahadev Das) and Jorhat (Ribulaya Gogoi). The party which have no parliamentarian from the state believed to be opening its account this time.“People have voted all the other parties in Assam to power and being betrayed. So, we have urged the people of the state to give us a chance and the party is sure to get its first parliamentarian from the state in this general election,” claimed the party’s state chief. Party insiders said that the party is eyeing to win at least three seats from the state including one in Barak valley.Taking state’s D’ Voter or Doubtful voter issue as one of the main election agenda, the AITC has been running its campaign in the state. In 1997, during an intensive revision of electoral rolls, the Election Commission had ordered that the letter ‘D’ be written against names of those voters who allegedly failed to provide their citizenship proof and their cases were referred to the foreigners’ tribunals in the state. A person declared as ‘D’ voter is not given the elector’s photo identity card and barred from casting votes.“AITC wants a permanent solution to the D’ voter issue. Similarly, the National Register of Citizenship (NRC) updation process has also left out many legal Indian citizens from its list. We want a fair NRC and AITC will keep on pressing for it. Besides, AITC is also against Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 and illegal infiltrators,” Nath added.The party’s state head also refuted to the reports of AITC planning for a poll understanding with perfume baron Badruddin Ajmal led All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF). Nath, denying any such alliance, said that Mamata Banerjee’s rally in Dhubri itself is a statement that the party is not involved in any poll understanding with AIUDF. For AIUDF , seating MP Ajmal himself is fighting from Dhubri seat again. Dhubri goes to poll on the third phase of polls on April 23.

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