Guwahati: The ruling Congress and Opposition , BJP and All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) won seat each out of the total three Assembly constituencies in Assam, where bye-elections were held on September 13 last.
While Congress and AIUDF retained Lakhipur and Jamunamukh LACs respectively, the BJP bagged Silchar LAC, official sources said here.
AIUDF’s Abdur Rahim Ajmal has won the Jamunamukh constituency, defeating his nearest Congress rival by margin of over 12,000 votes.
The Congress nominee for Lakhipur constituency, Rajdeep Goala, retained the constituency for the ruling party. In Silchar, BJP’s Dilip Kumar Paul comfortably clinched the seat from the Congress.
Bye-elections for Jamunamukh and Silchar were necessitated following election of incumbent MLAs, Md Sirajuddin Ajmal and Sushmita Deb respectively, to the Lok Sabha. The Lakhipur seat fell vacant due to death of sitting MLA Dinesh Prasad Goala.
Barely 1 months to go before the next Assembly election in 2016, the results of the Assembly by-polls hardly encouraging for the ruling Congress.
Even though the ruling Congress has retained the Lakhipur seat by a slender margin, its vote share stands reduced drastically in all the three assembly constituencies while polarization votes on religious lines benefitted both the BJP and AIUDF, an amalgamation of over a dozen minority political groups in the state.
Despite being its traditional stronghold, Lakhipur win could not enthused the Congress much as its candidate Rajdeep Gowala, son of former MLA late Dinesh Prasad Gowala, won the seat by a margin of 9,836 votes. Gowala polled 39,158 votes, while his nearest rival BJP’s Sanjay Kumar Thakur got 29,322.
In the last assembly elections in 2011, the Congress’ winning margin was over 30,000 while the BJP had got just 11,326 votes. AIUDF’s Mukesh Pandey received 22,588 votes this time.
AIUDF president, Badruddin Ajmal’s son Abdur Rahim Ajmal retained the Jamunamukh seat for the AIUDF defeating Congress’ Bashir Uddin Laskar by 22,959 votes.
Here too Congress’ vote share dipped by about 10,000, resulting in a gain for BJP which increased its vote share from 4238 in 2011 to 13,868 this time.
Silchar was the biggest setback for the Congress where the BJP polled double the votes it had polled in the last Assembly polls in 2011.
BJP’s Dilip Kumar Pal bagged 73,730 votes, while Congress’ Arun Dutta Mazumdar polled 36,774 votes. The Congress had received over 60,000 votes in 2011.
Taking the by-poll results into account, the Congress now has 78 MLAs in the 126-member State assembly.
The BJP has increased its tally from five to six seats .
The AIUDF has 18 MLAs, AGP nine , BPF 12, TMC one and Independents two in Assam Assembly.