Guwahati, April 14 (IANS) Opposition in Assam has been sceptical in regards to the delimitation of Meeting and Lok Sabha constituencies within the state for the reason that draft of the train was first revealed by the Election Fee in June final yr.
Congress, AIUDF, Trinamool Congress, and different opposition events have claimed that the “ECI did a favour to the BJP in the entire train”, an allegation that has been strongly refuted by the ruling social gathering.
The 4 Lok Sabha seats of higher Assam — Dibrugarh, Lakhimpur, Jorhat, and Tezpur (now Sonitpur) — have been all the time dominated by the Hindu inhabitants. These have been as soon as the bastions of the Congress social gathering. The political dynamics modified in 2014 when the BJP made severe inroads right here and gained these 4 parliamentary constituencies.
Nonetheless, in Barpeta, Darang, Kaliabor, and so on., constituencies, minority votes have been the deciding issue, and Congress had a bonus in these seats even after the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Tarun Gogoi as soon as represented Kaliabor Lok Sabha in Parliament. He gained this seat thrice — 1991, 1998 and 1999. In 2001, Gogoi give up Lok Sabha after turning into the Chief Minister of Assam. His brother Dip Gogoi was given the Congress ticket in Kaliabor.
Dip Gogoi first gained the Kaliabor seat in 2002 by-election and was once more re-elected to Parliament from the identical constituency in 2004 and 2009.
When Tarun Gogoi’s son Gaurav Gogoi was launched to politics, he was nominated by the Congress social gathering from Kaliabor within the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Gaurav Gogoi gained in 2014 and 2019 basic elections regardless of a powerful wave of BJP in Assam.
Publish-delimitation train, the Kaliabor seat ceased to exist, and a brand new constituency, Kaziranga, was shaped. This seat is now dominated by Hindu voters, and minorities are not an enormous issue right here. Meeting constituencies with a serious Muslim inhabitants, like Ruaparihat, Samaguri, and Dhing, have been scrapped from the Kaliabor Lok Sabha seat, and Hindu-populated areas have been included right here.
The modified dynamics of this Lok Sabha constituency have pressured Gaurav Gogoi to vary his seat, and he’s contesting from Jorhat this time.
The BJP gained the Darang Lok Sabha seat in 2019. Nonetheless, a great variety of Muslim inhabitants poses a problem to the BJP right here. The ECI-conducted delimitation train has included areas just like the Jalukbari Meeting constituency inside the parliamentary constituency the place Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is an MLA.
In 2019, Congress gained three Lok Sabha seats in Assam — Kaliabor, Nagaon, and Barpeta. Nonetheless, the voter sample of the Barpeta Lok Sabha seat was modified to a big extent within the delimitation train. A seat that was all the time dominated by the Muslim inhabitants, now Hindu votes can even play a serious position in deciding the candidate’s fortune.
Abdul Khaleque, the incumbent Congress MP, refused to combat from the Barpeta Lok Sabha seat this time, and he insisted on a ticket from the Dhubri Lok Sabha seat.
Assam has greater than 30 per cent of the Muslim inhabitants; nevertheless, the minority voters might be a deciding issue solely within the three Lok Sabha seats — Dhubri, Nagaon, and Karimganj. That’s the reason Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma claimed at the least six months in the past that the BJP would win at the least 11 out of the whole 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam.
Congress leaders have been alleging that the entire delimitation course of was carried out with the motive of giving electoral advantages to the BJP. The ruling social gathering leaders have argued that delimitation was an train carried out by the Election Fee and that the BJP had no position on this.
Nonetheless, it’s a indisputable fact that post-delimitation, opposition events found that taking over the BJP in Assam has change into an uphill activity.
–IANS
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