In another three days, the curtain will come down on the Lok Sabha elections in Assam with the third and final phase of polling on May 7. The last round will see four constituencies – Guwahati, Kokrajhar (ST), Dhubri, and Barpeta – going to poll. Polling for the 10 other constituencies was held on April 19 and April 26. Polling will, however, continue across many other parts of the country until it finally ends on June 1 after covering seven phases. The votes will be counted on June 4. The total number of days of the electoral process this time, from the announcement of the polls by the Election Commission till the counting of votes, is 82 although the actual voting period is spread over 44 days starting April 19. This is the second longest after the first parliamentary elections of 1951-52, which lasted for more than four months between October 25, 1951, and February 21, 1952, in 68 phases, for 489 seats across 401 constituencies in 25 states. The shortest voting period for a general election in the country was in 1980, and it was just four days. In 2004, the four-phase Lok Sabha polls took 21 days; in 2009, there were five phases and the process was a month long. In 2014, the election was held in nine phases and took 36 days. The 2019 election was held in seven phases and took 43 days. The Election Commission of India has attributed the length of the electoral process to the geography of regions and other factors such as public holidays, festivals, and examinations. The explanation notwithstanding, the fact remains that it is too long an exercise and there will be relief once it finally draws to a close.
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As for turnout in polling so far, Assam has reason to be proud compared to the Hindi heartland states which recorded much lower polling. It is this low turnout in these states that is said to have rung the alarm bell in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and has reinvigorated the Opposition; the low turnout to an extent is being attributed to lethargy among the saffron party’s supporters who may have chosen to not cast their votes in this hot summer confident that the party will win anyway. It is this fear of not crossing the much-touted 400-mark that is said to have goaded the party to tread the path that it knows so well – go for religious polarisation to stir its supporters into action for the remaining five phases of polling. In fact, less does the party, particularly its star campaigner Prime Minister Narendra Modi, now talk about what its government has done over the past five years and what it plans to do for the next; the collective saffron mind led by Modi is focused on warning the people of the main Opposition party Congress’s design to take away their wealth, including even the mangalsutra, to redistribute it among the “infiltrators” and those with “more children” - in other words, the Muslims. In Assam, on the other hand, the community – Bengali-speaking Muslims -- is in demand as it has enough number to influence the outcome in two of the four constituencies. The BJP’s chest-thumping claim until the first phase of polling that it does not require the vote of the ‘miya’s is now no more to be heard.
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