Three-time sitting MP from Dhubri Badruddin Ajmal bit the dust as he lost the seat to Congress import to the constituency, Rakibul Hussain, in the Lok Sabha elections results of which were declared on Tuesday, June 4.
GUWAHATI: The National Democratic Front (NDA) led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may have lost seats across India in comparison to 2019 Lok Sabha elections, but the performance of the alliance was decent this time too in Assam.
In 2019, BJP won 9 seats with a vote share of 36.4%, Congress won 3 seats with a vote share of 35.8%, AIUDF won one seat with a vote share of 7.9% and an independent candidate from Kokrajhar had won one seat with a vote share of 4.3%.
In 2024, after delimitation – it was felt that the victory of Congress in even one seat would be difficult. But the Congress won three seats with decent margins. Gaurav Gogoi won by around 1.4 lakh votes from Jorhat Lok Sabha constituency against BJP’s sitting MP Tapan Gogoi. Pradyut Bordoloi won from Nagaon by a margin of around 2.15 lakh votes against BJP’s Suresh Borah.
As a shocker, the three-time sitting MP from Dhubri, AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal was defeated by Congress leader Rakibul Hussain by a huge margin of around 9.62 lakh votes. Congress candidate Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Choudhury from Karimganj also gave a hard fight to BJP’s sitting MP Kripananth Mallah in a neck and neck contest before conceding defeat by 36,000 votes.
BJP candidates did well in constituencies like Guwahati, Lakhimpur, Dibrugarh, Silchar, Darang-Udalguri, Sonitpur, Kaziranga and Diphu. BJP’s allies AGP and UPPL won in Barpeta and Kokrajhar.
Among BJP winners was Union minister Sarbananda Sonowal from Dibrugarh, who defeated Lurinjyoti Gogoi of AJP by a margin of 2.78 lakh votes. The only woman candidate and a first-timer, Bijuli Kalita Medhi of the BJP, won from prestigious Guwahati seat defeating nearest Congress rival Mira Borthakur by a margin of 2.48 lakh votes.
The other BJP candidates to win were Parimal Suklabaidya (Silchar), Pradan Baruah (Lakhimpur), Ranjit Dutta (Sonitpur), Kamakhya Prasad Tasa (Kaziranga), Dilip Sakia (Darrang-Udalguri) and Amarsing Tisso (Diphu).
Gaurav Gogoi’s family’s pocket borough Kaliabor — it was represented for nearly three decades by his father and former Assam CM Tarun Gogoi, uncle Dip Gogoi, and then him — was redrawn, transformed, and renamed Kaziranga in last year’s delimitation of parliamentary and Assembly constituencies. There was initially uncertainty over where Gaurav — currently one of the most prominent parliamentarians from the Northeast and the Deputy Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha — would contest but the party ultimately fielded him from Jorhat.
While the constituency may be new to him as a candidate, it is another familiar one for his family. Tarun Gogoi was elected Jorhat MP thrice from 1971 onwards and he represented Titabor, one of the constituent Assembly segments, from 2001 till he passed away in 2020, and was Chief Minister for three of those terms. The BJP did not leave any stone unturned to defeat Gaurav from Jorhat but finally he won reviving the lost flame of Congress in the state.
Rakibul’s victory in Dhubri has ousted Badruddin Ajmal’s politics as according to Congress leaders the Muslims of Assam have realised the “double game” of Ajmal. Rakibul won by huge margin from Dhubri demolishing Ajmal’s bastion.
Bordoloi too was seen as a weak candidate in Nagaon despite being the sitting MP because of the delimitation, but Bordoloi too proved his mettle in the elections.
As the Assam assembly elections are slated in 2026, the Lok Sabha results could provide Congress a shot in the arm.
