Phase 1 of elections on Saturday to the 126-member Assam Assembly is expected to test the impact of the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act movement and the loyalty of “tea tribes” or Adivasi voters.
Political commentators say the tea plantation workers and migrant Muslims have traditionally voted en bloc. The Congress was said to be the beneficiary of both “vote banks” until the BJP enticed the plantation workers in 2016 while the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) ate into the Muslim votes.
The Congress and AIUDF are allies this time but Muslims are a deciding factor in only five of the 47 seats in the first phase across eastern and part of central Assam.
Wages matter
The voters that matter most in this phase are the tea plantation workers who call the shots in 38 of these seats. Apart from the issue of the daily wage, the Adivasis are one of six Assam communities demanding Scheduled Tribe status.
Four of the other five — Chutia, Matak, Moran and Tai-Ahom — communities demanding ST status dominate several seats in this phase.
“We have asked members of our community to vote wisely for a party that will give them the wages and the ST status they deserve,” said All Assam Tea Tribes Association president Stephen Lakra.
“The ST issue somehow seems to have waned after the anti-CAA movement. But that too seems to have lost intensity on the ground, although a section of the people is aware. Cash benefits and other sops could be the reason,” Jayanta Krishna Sarmah of Gauhati University’s Political Science Department told The Hindu.
Agitation impact
While the BJP has claimed CAA is a non-issue, the Congress virtually hijacked it from the new regional front of Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) and Akhil Gogoi’s Raijor Dal (RD) —both spawned by the agitation.
“People in Assam are largely against CAA, and we hope they will vote accordingly,” Congress MP and the party’s campaign chief Pradyut Bordoloi said.
The BJP and ally Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) had won 35 of these 47 seats in 2016. The allies hope to do better this time, banking partly on the perception that the Congress-AIUDF alliance would backfire in eastern Assam, where the indigenous communities are in a majority. The AIUDF is seen as a party catering to Bengal-origin Muslims.
Shrines encroached
The first phase is also crucial for the BJP’s credo of protecting Assam from ‘land jihad’, a reference to encroachment by alleged illegal immigrants on land belonging to some 300 satras (Vaishnavite monasteries) and wildlife preserves.
Batadrava, the seat the BJP wrested in 2016 from Congress, is in this phase. The constituency is named after the Batadrava Satra, birthplace of 15th-16th century saint-reformer Srimanta Sankaradeva, an icon the BJP has appropriated. While many such “threatened” satras are in western Assam, the “unthreatened” one is in Majuli, the Brahmatputra River “island” that Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal represents.
The first phase also has six constituencies straddling the Kaziranga National Park, parts of which are occupied by alleged Bangladeshis, who are also accused of rhino poaching. AGP president Atul Bora is seeking re-election from one of these seats.
Mr Bora is among four party presidents whose fate will be locked in the ballot boxes on March 27. The others are State Congress president Ripun Bora (Gohpur), jailed RD president Akhil Gogoi (Sibsagar) and AJP president Lurinjyoti Gogoi (Duliajan and Naharkatiya).
Apart from Mr Sonowal, the key candidates in this phase include Assembly Speaker Hitendra Nath Goswami (Jorhat), Minorities Welfare Minister Ranjit Dutta (Behali), Water Resources Minister Keshab Mahanta, former Congress Minister Ajanta Neog (Golaghat) and former Congress Minister Rakibul Hussain.
