Guwahati, Mar 14 (IANS): Taking on the BJP governments at the Centre and the state, former Assam Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Tarun Gogoi on Saturday said 'communal virus' of the saffron outfit was more dangerous than the coronavirus and declared that his party was keen on forging a grand alliance to defeat the communal forces in the next year's assembly polls.

Gogoi said the party's alliance with the All India United Democratic Front for the Rajya Sabha polls was the first step in forging the grand alliance with like-minded parties having faith in secularism.

The Congress-AIUDF has jointly backed senior journalist Ajit Bhuyan's candidature for the March 26 RS polls.

"Congress' alliance with AIUDF is an attempt to forge a grand alliance with all those forces which have faith in democracy and secularism. We want to protect our Constitution," he said.

Gogoi said the coronavirus was creating havoc, but "communal virus of the BJP is more dangerous as it is creating hatred and conflict leading to killing of people".

"To contain this, all right-minded people having faith in secularism and democracy have to come together. So we have decided to go for a larger alliance for the coming assembly election," he said.

Gogoi said the Congress now wanted to expand the alliance by including parties such as the CPI, CPI-M, splinter groups of AGP, AASU and KMSS.

"We want to have an alliance with everybody. We have to have 'mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) so as to defeat the communal forces," he said.