Campaigning for the crucial first phase of Assam polls ended on Thursday with parties trying to reach out to voters with rallies, road shows and house-to-house canvassing.
A total of 47 seats in 11 districts, especially in the tea-rich Upper Assam belt, will go to polls in the first phase on March 27. The outcome of the first phase is expected to be crucial for both the Bharatiya Janata Party-led ruling alliance and the opposition Congress’s grand alliance of seven parties.
A total of 264 candidates including heavyweights like Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal (Majuli), state Congress president Ripun Bora (Gohpur), president of ruling Asom Gana Parishad Atul Bora (Bokakhat), Raijor Dal president Akhil Gogoi (Sivasagar) and Assam Jatiya Parishad president Lurinjyoti Gogoi (Duliajan and Nahakatia) are in the fray in the first phase.
Significantly, there are only 23 women candidates in the first phase. Prominent among them are Ajanta Neog, sitting Congress MLA and former minister from Golaghat, who joined BJP recently and is contesting from the saffron party and popular actress Angoorlata Deka who will try to retain her seat in Batadroba for the BJP.
A total of 8.1 million voters including 124 transgender voters would exercise their ballot at 11,537 polling stations of which 479 are all women polling stations, informed Chief Electoral Officer Nitin Khade.
“We are ready for the first phase of polls and everything is in place. In the first phase nearly 50% of the polling stations would have CCTV coverage,” Khade told journalists on Thursday.
{{/usCountry}}“We are ready for the first phase of polls and everything is in place. In the first phase nearly 50% of the polling stations would have CCTV coverage,” Khade told journalists on Thursday.
{{/usCountry}}While BJP is contesting in 39 of the 47 seats in the first phase, its ally AGP will contest in 10 seats (there would be a ‘friendly contest’ between the allies in two seats). On the other hand, Congress will contest in 43 seats and newly formed AJP in 41 seats.
The seats in the first phase would be important for BJP, if they have to achieve their target of winning over 100 of the total 126 seats in the Assam assembly. In 2016, the BJP-AGP combine had won 35 of the 47 seats helping the saffron party to come to power for the first time in Assam.
“We will win almost all the seats we are contesting in the first phase. There’s a little bit of uncertainty in just one seat,” senior minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said recently. On Thursday, the star campaigner addressed rallies in seven constituencies which will go to polls in the first phase.
Constituencies in the first phase fall in the tea-rich belt and both BJP and Congress have tried their best to woo the tea-tribe community whose votes play a decisive role in 35-40 seats in the first phase.
Besides several schemes for the community launched by the state government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, BJP national president JP Nadda and Union defence minister Rajnath Singh addressed several rallies in the state where they promised more schemes for them in the coming days.
The Congress also announced a guarantee of increasing daily wages of tea garden workers to ₹365 if it comes to power and the party’s leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra have tried their best to reach out to the tea-tribe community.
“The pulse of the ground assures us that the people of Assam are with us and we will secure a resounding victory for the grand alliance,” Chhattisgarh CM and Congress observer for Assam Bhupesh Baghel said on Thursday.