In the second phase of voting slated for 26th April, voting will take place in five places - Nagaon, Darrang-Udalguri, Diphu(ST), Silchar(SC), and Karimganj. The five Lok Sabha constituencies have many issues that need to be taken care of, like unemployment, floods, poverty, etc. But, among others, development and separate statehood demand are some major issues for the voters there.
GUWAHATI: In Silchar (SC), Assam Excise Minister Parimal Suklabaidya is the BJP candidate, who will take on Congress youth leader and District General Secretary Surjya Kanta Sarkar. Trinamool Congress candidate Radheshyam Biswas is also contesting from Silchar.
BJP MP Kripanath Mallah has been given the ticket in Karimganj against Congress nominee Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Choudhury, and AIUDF’s Sahabul Islam Choudhury.
Amarsing Tisso of BJP will contest against Congress’ Joy Ram Englang, and a popular independent candidate who is a former bureaucrat, JI Kathar.
Three Congress heavyweights from Assam — former ministers Pradyut Bordoloi and Rakibul Hussain and the party’s incumbent deputy leader in Lok Sabha, Gaurav Gogoi — wanted to contest from the Nagaon Lok Sabha seat in the coming Lok Sabha elections. Finally Bordoloi from Congress is contesting from Nagaon against BJP’s Suresh Bora and the AIUDF has also fielded a candidate there - Aminul Islam.
The Darrang-Udalguri Lok Sabha constituency, one of the newly created seats by delimitation out of the erstwhile Mangaldai seat, where the seeds of Assam’s six-year-long anti-foreigner movement were sown in 1978, is now a mixed pot of Hindus, Muslims and Christians. Six out of 11 assembly segments under the parliamentary seat fall under the jurisdiction of Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) and five segments are outside the BTR and offer a three-way contest among the Congress, the BJP and the Hagrama Mohilary-led Bodoland People’s Front.
The seat had only three assembly segments from the BTR. The Bodo votes of the BTR areas will be the determining factor in this election as the number of assembly segments from the BTR has been increased to six in the parliamentary seat following the redrawing of boundaries. The BPF had knocked on the door of the Congress seeking support of the INDIA bloc in the Darrang-Udalguri seat and the Kokrajhar seat as its rival Pramod Boro-led United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL) is an ally of the BJP. The clever saffron party has given the Kokrajhar seat to the UPPL, while it has fielded sitting MP Dilip Saikia for the Darrang-Udalguri seat. Congress has fielded Madhab Rajbangshi and BPF has fielded Durga Das Boro.
In 2019 BJP’s Rajdeep Roy received 949696 and won the elections in Silchar, Kripanath Mallah won Karimganj as a BJP candidate by getting 10,60,072 votes and Horen Sing Bey of BJP won from Diphu by getting 6,17,735 votes. Congress candidate Pradyut Bordoloi in 2019 secured 739724 votes.
Talking about issues in Barak Valley, Congress spokesperson Mehdi Alom Bora said, “Development is the main issue in Barak Valley as the people there still face challenges regarding communication.”
He said the construction of the road through Haflong is ongoing still a long time and is not completed. Similarly, there are many roads across Barak Valley which are in pathetic condition.
A resident of Silchar, Kishore Bhattacharjee talking to GPlus said, “Discrimination by state authorities is the main issue.” He said that if one lakh jobs are given to people of Assam, Barak Valley youths do not get even one percent.
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Barak Valley is lagging behind in economic development, employment, linguistic aggression and other issues, Bhattacharjee said adding therefore there is a demand of separate state. He said that the agitation has not yet started but if the people of the area keep getting discriminated the chorus for such demand will keep growing.
BJP Candidate from Silchar Parimal Suklabaidya said, “Whatever development happened in Barak Valley is because of BJP and the people will keep voting for BJP.”
Congress candidate from Karimganj Hafiz Rashid Choudhury said that there is no development in Barak Valley and there is anti-incumbency for which people will vote for him.
Five candidates are vying for the 6-Diphu (ST) Parliamentary Constituency. Among them are Amarsing Tisso from the BJP, Joyram Engleng from Congress, Jotson Bey from the Autonomous State Demand Committee (ASDC), John Bernard Sangma from the Gana Suraksha Party (GSP), and independent candidate J I Kathar, backed by the All Party Hills Leaders Conference (APHLC).
Independent candidate JI Kathar has been advocating for the strengthening of the Sixth Scheduled and the implementation of Article 244 (A) to grant autonomous statehood in hill districts of Assam.
Kathar’s campaign has focused on reaching out to every Member of Autonomous Constituency (MAC) in West Karbi Anglong. Talking to GPlus Kathar said, “Congress has ignored us, BJP is ignoring us so the people require change which will bring development.”
He said maximum houses in Karbi Anglong are made of bamboo as people are very poor. The national parties only provide them liquor and meat during elections but this will not work this time.
A resident of Karbi Anglong said without liquor and no party can win elections in Karbi Anglong.
Nagaon and Darrang-Udalguri have a bit different issues than Barak Valley or Autonomous Hill Area.
In Nagaon there are issues related to citizenship, said a resident of Nagaon. Other than that poverty, unemployment, floods are also some of the issues.
Darang-Udalguri also have poverty as one of the major issues with unemployment, floods, roads filing the list.
As per the electoral roll, over 50% of the total voters of the constituency are from the six assembly segments which fall in the BTR and the remaining voters are from the five assembly segments which do not fall in the region. As a consequence of the delimitation, the votes of the BTR areas increased by over 6 lakh, which, the BJP feels, will help them keep the seat in its pocket.
A BJP source and member of the party’s state executive committee said that no matter whatever is the issue but BJP will win there as whatever development happened in Darrang-Udalguri is after the BJP came to power.
Delimitation, besides reorganising the Nagaon parliamentary constituency, has also changed the political dynamics where the number of minority voters has been pushed beyond 50% with the addition of three assembly segments from erstwhile Kaliabor seat having high concentration of migrant Muslims. The inclusion of Dhing, Rupahihat, and Samaguri assembly segments in Nagaon Lok Sabha constituency boosted confidence of Congress, which won Nagaon seat in 2019 polls by less than 20,000 votes. While the ratio of Hindu and Muslim electorates had been 60:40 in 2019, after delimitation 51% voters in Nagaon LS seat are now Muslims whereas 49% are Hindus.
Though Congress was expecting smooth sailing in Nagaon seat after change in political equation post delimitation, and shifting of ticket aspirant and Kaliabor MP Gaurav Gogoi to Jorhat, Badruddin Ajmal-led AIUDF spoiled Congress’s party in Nagaon. AIUDF has fielded Dhing MLA Aminul Islam from Nagaon, which may result in massive erosion of Congress’s minority vote bank in several assembly segments.
But the issues which voters will calculate in Nagaon remains development, unemployment and poverty.
