GUWAHATI: The two arch rivals, the BJP and the Congress are pooling in all their respective top-bracket star campaigners to light up the campaign trail in Assam this Lok Sabha election.
The Congress which aims to capitalize on the ‘good will’ it has generated for itself because of its firm stand against the contentious Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), believes that it will be able to put up a very good show this time and improve upon its three seats-win performance of 2014 election in the state.
The APCC president Ripun Bora claims that the party will win eight to ten parliamentary seats in this election while the BJP leader and Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal claims that the BJP and its allies win will at least 12 seats out of the total 14 seats in Assam.
Star campaigners of both the parties are set to hit the campaign trail beginning this week. The Congress campaign will be boosted by all the country’s three most known living Gandhis – Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra besides other senior party leaders including Dr Manmohan Singh, Gulam Nabi Azad, Ahmed Patel, and Anand Sharma. However, Congress is yet to decide on the campaign schedule of the Gandhi trio for Assam.
On the other hand, the BJP’s national president Amit Shah is going to launch the party’s poll campaign for first phase election in Assam by addressing two rallies on March 28 – one at Kakojan in Jorhat Parliamentary constituency and another at Misa under Kaliabor Parliamentary constituency. The BJP has fielded sitting MLA and a minister in Assam, Tapan Gogoi from Jorhat while its ally AGP has fielded Monimadhab Mahanta from Kaliabor constituency.
India’s ‘Chowkidar’ Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to address two election rallies for the BJP at Gohpur in Biswanath under Tezpur Parliamentary Constituency and Moran in under Dibrugarh Constituency on March 30.
The BJP has fielded sitting legislator and a minister, Pallab Lochan Das from Tezpur and sitting MP, Rameswar Teli from Dibrugarh.
It may be noted that voting for the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls in Assam will be held on April 11, while voting for the second phase is scheduled for April 18. The third and last phase of polling in Assam will be held on April 23.