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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.

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