Assam goes for 4 Lok Sabha seats polling on 7 May

 

With two phases of polling for 21 Lok Sabha seats  in northeast India passed almost peacefully with higher percentage of voters turnout than the national average, Assam is waiting for polls in four Parliamentary constituencies during  the third phase of voting scheduled for 7 May 2024. Altogether  94 Parliamentary  seats belonging to  12 States and union territories will go to polls in the 3rd phase, where Gujarat electorates will vote for all 26 representatives to 18th Lok Sabha along  with  Karnataka (14 seats), Maharashtra (11 seats), Uttar Pradesh (10 seats), Madhya Pradesh (8 seats), Chhattisgarh (7 seats), Bihar (5 seats), West Bengal (4 seats), Goa (2 seats), Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu (2 seats) and  Jammu & Kashmir (1 seat).

A total of 1,351 nominees belonging to national and regional political parties (including a few independent candidates) will seek electoral mandates in this phase, where the counting of votes will take place on 4 June (after four more phases of polling on 13, 20, 25 May and 1 June) and the results of general elections are expected the same day. The 1st (19 April) and 2nd  (26 April)  phases covered 102 and 89 Parliamentary constituencies respectively, where the Election Commission of India revealed the voters turn out as around 65 and 67 % accordingly.

Tripura, Meghalaya and Assam recorded impressive  polling from 75 to over 80% in both the phases. Even Nagaland, where six districts recorded zero voting, reported around 57 % polling. Voters of Arunachal Pradesh successfully  exercised their franchise to elect two MPs and 50 legislators with a turnout of around 67 %. Mentionable is that, 10 BJP candidates including State chief minister Pema Khandu and his deputy Chowna Mein had already won the race with no opposition candidates. Sikkim electorates also voted for 32 legislators along with one  MP with more than 75 % turnout. 

The ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) put candidates in all ten Parliamentary seats  of Assam in the last two phases. The saffron party on the third phase  nominates only one candidate (Bijuli Kalita Medhi  for Guwahati LS constituency) and extends support to ally candidates namely Phani Bhusan Choudhury (Asom Gana Parishad) from Barpeta,  Zabed Islam (AGP) from Dhubri and Jayanta Basumtary (United People’s Party Liberal) from Kokrajhar seat.  Former BJP leader  Mira Barthakur Goswami (now in Congress) will put an electoral challenge to the saffron nominee along with other six candidates.

In Barpeta, the AGP legislator  will face  Deep Bayan (Congress),  Manoranjan Talukdar (a CPM legislator) and others, whereas in  Dhubri the AGP nominee will challenge sitting All India United Democratic Front MP Badruddin Ajmal, where Congress puts legislator Rakibul Hussain as its candidate in the western most constituency. The nomination of sitting Kokrajhar MP Naba Kr Sarania  was cancelled and now the UPPL nominee (a legislator) will primarily face electoral challenges from  Garjan Mashhary (Congress) and Khampa Borgoyary (Bodoland People’s Front) in the Bodo dominated constituency.

 

Nava Thakuria is a senior journalist based in Guwahati and has been in the profession for more than three decades. His focus areas remain the socio-political and environmental issues of eastern Bharat. Often his articles are used by various media outlets based in different parts of south & southeast Asia.