GUWAHATI, March 31: The fate of heavyweights like incumbent state ministers Parimal Suklabaidya, Pijush Hazarika and Rajya Sabha MP from BJP Biswajit Daimary among the 345 candidates will be sealed in electronic voting machines as 39 legislative Assembly constituencies go to the second phase of elections in Assam on Thursday.
Altogether, 73, 44,631 general electors and 17, 164 service voters will be exercising their democratic rights across 10,592 polling stations in 14 election districts spreading across parts of central Assam, including four seats in Bodoland Territorial Region, two hill districts and Barak Valley.
Addressing media persons here on Wednesday, Assam chief electoral officer Nitin Khade said that the state election department was fully prepared for the second phase polls even as polling personnel were being dispatched to the respective polling booths.
“Hojai constituency will have the highest number of voters (2,65,886) while Howraghat LAC will have the lowest number of voters (1,32, 339). In regard to candidates, Algapur constituency has the highest number with 19 candidates while Udalguri has the lowest with two candidates,” Khade said.
The oldest candidate in the second phase is Dulal Sutradhar, who is 82 years and contesting as an Independent.
The first phase across 47 seats saw a healthy voter turnout of 79.97 percent.
“We appeal to the voters to come out to vote as we have put all arrangements in place, including all COVID-19 protocols. There is a waiting area in the polling booths and we have arranged plastic gloves, masks, sanitisers, soaps, etc,” he said.
All necessary security arrangements have also been made with police and paramilitary forces deployed across all polling booths in the state.
In regard to the electoral battle, the contests appear interesting in the sense that certain strong candidates have switched camps,
Silchar, one of the 15 constituencies in Barak Valley, will see former BJP veteran and former Deputy Speaker of the Assam Assembly, Dilip Paul contesting as an Independent after he did not get a ticket from the saffron party. Paul, the incumbent MLA, will be primarily contesting against Deepayan Chakraborty of BJP and Tamal Banik of Congress.
In Dholai though, Cabinet minister and incumbent BJP MLA Parimal Sulkabaidya appears to be the favourite against Congress candidate K.P Mala while in Jagiroad, incumbent BJP MLA, Pijush Hazarika will be looking to retain his seat after a contest against Swapan Kumar Mandal of Congress.
In the hill district of Karbi Anglong, the Diphu seat is poised for an interesting battle with Sum Ronghang, who was earlier with BJP, contesting as a Congress candidate (after failing to get a ticket from the saffron party) against BJP’s Bidya Sing Engleng.
Another interesting battle to keep an eye on will be at Panery LAC, where Rajya Sabha MP from BJP and former BPF leader, Biswajit Daimary, will lock horns with Karuna Kanta Swargiary of BPF.
It may be mentioned that the BJP-led alliance in 2016, which also featured the Hagrama Mohilary-led BPF, had clinched a majority of these seats then. However, with BPF joining the Congress-led Mahajot, it remains to be seen how this development strengthens the Opposition in both the second and third phase of the polls in BTR.
The contest in Barak Valley, which has a history of being a “BJP bastion”, remains “fifty-fifty” though according to sources, with the Congress-AIUDF alliance looking to bag the lion’s share of the Muslim vote.
The Himanta Biswa Sarma-led high-pitch BJP poll campaigns of late, be it in Barak Valley or Brahmaputra Valley, too will have an impact on the seven Bengali Hindu dominated seats. The saffron party had won eight Assembly seats in Barak Valley in 2016.