Achi news desk-
In the second phase of voting scheduled for April 26, voting will be held in five places – Nagaon, Darrang-Udalguri, Diphu(ST), Silchar(SC) and Karimganj. The five Lok Sabha constituencies have many issues that need to be addressed, such as unemployment, floods, poverty, etc. But, among other things, development and the demand for a separate state are some key issues for the voters there.
Guwahati: In Silchar (SC), Assam Blues Minister Parimal Sokalbaidia is the BJP candidate, who will be pitted against Congress youth leader and district general secretary Surjia Kanta Sarkar. Trinamool Congress candidate Radhashyam Biswaz is also contesting from Sailchar.
BJP MP Kripanath Mallah got the ticket in Karimganj against Congress candidate Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Choudhury and AIUDF’s Sahabul Islam Choudhury.
BJP’s Amarsing Tsso will face Congress’s Joy Ram Anglang, and a popular independent candidate who is a former bureaucrat, JI Kathar.
Three Assam Congress heavyweights – former ministers Pradyut Bordoli and Raqibul Hussain and the party’s incumbent Lok Sabha deputy leader Gaurav Gogoi – wanted to contest from the Nagaon Lok Sabha seat in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Finally Bordoli of Congress is contesting from Nagaon against Suresh Bora of BJP and the AIUDF has also fielded a candidate there – Aminul Islam.
The Darang-Udalguri Lok Sabha constituency, one of the new seats created by delimitation from the erstwhile Mangaldai seat, where the seeds of Assam’s six-year anti-foreign movement were sown in 1978, is now a mixed pot of Hindus, Muslims and Christians. Six of the 11 assembly segments under the parliamentary seat fall under the jurisdiction of the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) and five segments are outside the BTR offering a three-way contest between the Congress, the BJP and the Grama Muhiri-led Bodoland People’s Front. .
The seat had only three mounting sections from the BTR. Bodo votes of the BTR areas will be the deciding factor in this election as the number of assembly segments from the BTR has increased to six in the parliamentary seat following redrawing of boundaries. The BPF has been knocking on the door of the Congress seeking the support of Block India in the Darang-Udalguri and Kokrajhar seats, as its rival, the Pramod Boro-led United People’s Liberal Party (UPPL) is an ally of the BJP. The smart saffron party gave the Kokrajhar seat to the UPPL, while it fielded sitting MP Dilip Saikia for the Darang-Udalguri seat. Congress fielded Madhav Rajbangshi and BPF fielded Durga Das Boro.
In 2019, Rajdeep Roy of BJP got 949,696 votes and won Silchar election, Kripanth Malach won Karimganj as BJP candidate by getting 10,60,072 votes and Haran Singh Bai of BJP won from Dipo by 6,17,735 Voices. Congress candidate Pradyut Bordoloi in 2019 secured 739,724 votes.
The speaker of the Congress, Mehdi Alum Bora, spoke about issues in the Barak Valley: “Development is the main issue in the Barak Valley because the people there still face challenges regarding communication.”
According to him, the construction of the road through Haflung is still taking a long time and has not been completed. Similarly, there are many roads throughout the Barak Valley which are in a pathetic condition.
Silchar resident Kishore Bhattacharjee who spoke to GPlus said, “Discrimination by state authorities is the main issue.” He said that if lakhs of jobs are given to the people of Assam, the youth of Barak Valley do not get even one percent.
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Emek Barak is lagging behind in economic development, employment, linguistic aggression and other issues, said Bhattacharjee, adding that there is a demand for a separate state. He said the storm has not yet begun, but if the residents of the area continue to be discriminated against, the chorus of such demand will continue to grow.
BJP candidate from Silchar Parimal Suklabaidya said, “All the development that happened in Barak Valley is because of BJP and the people will continue to vote for BJP.”
Congress candidate from Karimganj Hafiz Rasheed Chowdhury said there is no development in Barak Valley and there is anti-incumbency that people will vote for him.
Five candidates are contesting for the 6 Depo (ST) parliamentary constituency. Among them are Amarsing Tisso of the BJP, Joyram Engleng of the Congress, Jotson Bey of the Autonomous State Demand Committee (ASDC), John Bernard Sangma of the Gana Suraksha Party (GSP), and independent candidate JI Kathar, backed by the All Party Hills Leaders’ Conference (APHLC).
Independent candidate JI Kathar supported the strengthening of the Sixth Schedule and the implementation of Article 244 (A) to grant an autonomous state in the hill districts of Assam.
Cather’s campaign focused on reaching every member of the West Karby Anglong Autonomous Constituency (MAC). Speaking to GPlus Kathar said, “Congress has ignored us, BJP is ignoring us so the people are demanding a change that will bring development.”
He said that the maximum houses in Anglong villages are made of bamboo because people are very poor. The national parties only supply them with liquor and meat during elections, but this will not work this time.
A resident of Karbi Anglong said without liquor, no party can win elections in Karbi Anglong.
Ngaon and Drang-Udalgori have somewhat different problems than Emek Barak or the Autonomous Hill Region.
In Nagaon there are issues related to citizenship, said a resident of Nagaon. Apart from this, poverty, unemployment, floods are also some of the issues.
Drang-Udalguri also has poverty as one of the main problems with unemployment, floods, roads making the list.
According to the election book, over 50% of the total voters of the constituency are from the six assembly segments included in the BTR and the rest of the voters are from the five assembly segments that do not fall in the region. As a result of the delimitation, the votes of the BTR areas have increased by more than 6 lakh, which the BJP believes will help them retain the seat.
A BJP source and a member of the party’s state executive committee said that whatever the issue may be, the BJP will win there as whatever development happened in Darang-Udalguri is after the BJP came to power.
The delimitation, apart from restructuring the Bangaon parliamentary constituency, also changed the political dynamics where the number of minority voters was pushed beyond 50% with the addition of three assembly segments from the former Calibur seat with a high concentration of Muslim immigrants. The inclusion of Dhing, Rupahihat and Samaguri assembly segments in the Nagaon Lok Sabha constituency boosted the confidence of the Congress, which won the Nagaon seat in the 2019 polls by less than 20,000 votes. While the ratio of Hindu to Muslim electorate was 60:40 in 2019, after delimitation 51% of voters in Nagaon LS seat are now Muslim while 49% are Hindu.
Though the Congress was expecting a smooth sailing in the Nagaon seat after a change in the political equation after delimitation, and the transfer of Kaliabor ticket aspirant and MP Gaurav Gogoi to Jorhat, AIUDF led by Badruddin Ajmal spoiled the Congress party in Nagaon. AIUDF has fielded Dhing MLA Aminul Islam from Nagaon, which could result in a massive erosion of Congress’s minority vote bank in several assembly segments.
But the issues that voters will think about in Nagaon remain development, unemployment and poverty.
