Do or die battle for Cong, AGP in Assam polls

Congress is hoping to break the anti-incumbency jinx and AGP is vying for survival under a new leader.

Ruling Congress and main opposition Asom Gana Parishad will be locked in a do-or-die battle in April's assembly elecions in Assam with Congress hoping to break the anti-incumbency jinx and AGP vying for survival under a new leader.

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Congress, under Tarun Gogoi's leadership with 78 MLAs in its kitty in the 126-member assembly, was controlling the state's affairs with a firm grip in the last five years.

But the big question is whether the ruling party could break Assam's history of having alternative party government every five years in the last three decades.

Chief Minister Gogoi thinks so. "We will definitely come to power again," Gogoi said in New Delhi on Friday.

"Good governance, massive development which we have undertaken in last five years and the peace process that we have initiated with the ULFA are the major achievements of our government," he said.

Gogoi said his party would like to conduct poll campaign on a comparative study of the performance of the previous AGP government and performance of his government in the last five years.

But AGP thinks otherwise. The regional party, which came to power twice in Assam--in 1985 and 1996--under Prafulla Kumar Mahanta's leadership, has a new leader in Brindaban Goswami this time.

Goswami claims "no one will vote for Congress again" considering its alleged "all round failure" in the last five years.