Skip to main content

Summary of First Phase of Assam Elections




Summary of First Phase of Assam Elections
By Deepak Parvatiyar
April 4, 2016
- See more at: http://www.elections.in/blog/summary-first-phase-assam-elections/#sthash.fnfJqJ00.dpuf
 
 
Chief minister Tarun Gogoi as well as the CM face of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Sarbananda Sonowal were among 539 candidates including 43 female candidates, whose fate were sealed in the ballot box in the first round of voting in Assam after the first phase of the two-phased state assembly elections on April 4.
While Gogoi is pitted against the BJP’s Lok Sabha member from Jorhat, Kamakhya Prasad Tasa, in Titabor constituency, Sonowal is contesting against the Congress’s sitting legislator Rajib Lochan Pegu in Majuli.
  
An impressive 78.06 per cent voters  out of the total 95,11,732 voters turned out to exercise their franchise in the 12,190 polling booths of 65 constituencies from across 14 districts of tea-growing Upper Assam, that included 45 constituencies of Brahmaputra Valley, 15 constituencies of Barak Valley, and five seats of Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao districts. The districts in the fray in the first phase were Sonitpur (8 seats), Dibrugarh (7 seats), Cachar (7 seats), Udalguri(3 seats), Sivasagar (6 seats), Jorhat (6 seats), Karmganj (5 seats), Tinsukia (5 seats), Lakhimpur (4 seats), Golaghat (4 seats), Karbi Anglong (4 seats), Hailakandi (3 seats), Dhemaji (2 seats) and Dima Hasao (1 seat).

At least 25 of the 30 candidates in the first phase who faced criminal cases had serious charges related to murder, kidnapping and crimes against women. Six of these candidates facing serious criminal charges belonged to the Congress while the BJP had 3 such candidates in the first phase.

The ruling Congress Party had fielded its candidates in all 65 seats while the BJP in 54 of the total 88 seats that the party is contesting in the state. The BJP’s alliance partners, the Asom Gana Parishad had fielded 11 candidates, and the Bodoland People’s Front, 3 candidates in the first phase. In Algapur, Mahmara, Naoboicha constituencies, both the BJP as well as the AGP have fielded candidates against each other though in what they termed as “friendly contests”. The perfume baron Moulana Badruddin Ajmal –led All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), had fielded candidates in 27 seats in the first phase.

The first round of polling is crucial for the BJP as the votes here will determine its fate in the state.  It hopes to muster the support of the Bengali Hindu votes of Barak valley bordering Bangladesh. In the 2014 general elections, the party had won four of its seven parliamentary seats (Assam has 14 parliamentary seats) from the constituencies that went to polls in the first phase.   In the second phase elections for 61 seats in Muslim dominated Lower and central Assam on April 11, it is contesting 35 seats, leaving 19 and 10 seats respectively to its allies AGP and BPF.

Reports suggest that at least 93 Electronic Voting Machines malfunctioned and had to be replaced during the first phase of Assembly polls in the state.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Maharashtra Assembly Polls 2014 : Implications of the End of Alliances

Maharashtra Assembly Polls 2014 : Implications of the End of Alliances By  Deepak Parvatiyar September 27, 2014 The time-tested political alliances — Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party, and the Indian National Congress-Nationalist Congress Party — collapsed like a pack of cards within a matter of hours in Maharashtra on Thursday, the 26th September. On the surface, the reasons seem common for both the break ups – each one of the alliance partners wanted to have a larger share of the pie and wanted to contest more seats than the other in the ensuing state assembly elections. Performances of Allies in 2009 Maharashtra Assembly Polls In the last assembly elections in 2009, the Congress had emerged as the largest party in the 272-member Maharashtra House by winning 82 of the 169 seats that it had contested. Its coalition partner, the NCP, had then won 62 of the 114 seats it had contested then then. You may also like to read Who will be the next Chief Mi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Indian Elections: Hostage to Corrupt Politicians?

Indian Elections: Hostage to Corrupt Politicians By  Deepak Parvatiyar September 18, 2014 We often talk of corruption pervading the electoral system in our country. We rue the criminals entering politics as we point out that 13 cabinet ministers in the present Union government face various charges of corruption. Further, as many as 186 MPs got elected despite facing criminal charges. In desperation, we expect a messiah a la Anna Hazare to stem the rot. Yet, corrupt and criminal elements manage to win elections, because we, the voters, elect them, even though we are fed up with corruption and criminalisation of politics. Do People Patronise Corrupt Politicians? Given a choice, don’t we voters most of the time opt for a benevolent crook who we perceive as a smart go-getter? Don’t we loathe an idealist simply because (s)he tends to go “too much by the book”?   Ask the Reserve Bank of India Governor, Raghuram Rajan! While  delivering a speech at...
Post a Comment
Read more

WANTED: A Leader

WANTED: A Leader EDITORIAL NEWS Share on facebook Share on blogger Share on linkedin Share on twitter More Sharing Services 31 WANTED: A Leader June 13, 2012 12:15 PM By Deepak Parvatiyar Do we really have any leader in our country who is above religion, caste, and sectarian politics and yet popular with the masses? Can you name any one name that is acceptable to the majority as a mass leader? My question assumes significance in the wake of what we witnessed last week. First, at the Congress Working Committee meeting the delegates raked up the issue of inaccessible ministers (how can they be leaders if they are inaccessible?) Yet, the most important issue was the lack of unanimity even within the ruling coalition itself over the choice of the next Presidential candidate. Thereafter, the BJP’s Gujarat satrap Narendra Modi delivered a power packed punch to claim the scalp of his little-known-much-discussed and elusive bête noire Sanjay Joshi. (Can Modi ...
Post a Comment
Read more