Bongaigaon is one of the 126 assembly constituencies of the Assam assembly constituency. It is the 32nd assembly constituency and comes under the Barpeta Lok Sabha constituency.
Bongaigaon is one of the 126 assembly constituencies of the Assam assembly constituency. It is serialised as the 32nd assembly constituency and comes under the Barpeta Lok Sabha constituency. It is a vital city in Assam in terms of transportation as it the gateway of the North-East Frontier railway zone after forming the New Bongaigaon Junction railway station, which is the second biggest railway station in the North-East. Bongaigaon is one of the highly populated areas of Assam, like Guwahati, Jorhat, Dibrugarh, and Silchar. Therefore, it is included in the Asian Development Bank's list of cities for urban planning. It is the administrative headquarters and municipal board of the Bongaigaon district.
Geographically it is located at 26.47°N 90.57°E with an average elevation of 62.6 meters. Bongaigaon town is situated 200 kilometres away from the state capital Dispur. After setting up the New Bongaigaon railway junction and other communicative means, the place has come to be recognised as an important centre for trade and commerce in western Assam. Bongaigaon is also the biggest industrial town in the lower part of Assam.
Bongaigaon town has numerous educational institutions. The place has both English and Assamese medium schools as well. There are multiple colleges in the town in terms of higher education, and a few of them are- Bongaigaon College, Bongaigaon Polytechnic, Bongaigaon Law College, Bongaigaon B.ED College, SAI Institute etc.
Additionally, in terms of healthcare, the town has nine hospitals, and a few of them are- S.M Hospital, Swagat Hospital, Lower Assam Hospital and Research Centre, Chilarai Nursing Home, Arogya Hospital and Research Centre, Kajalgaon Civil Hospital, etc.
The population of the Bongaigaon assembly constituency is 2,45,508, according to the 2011 census reports. The 2011 census report says that 64.07% of the total population lives in urban areas, and another 35.93% lives in rural areas.
Bongaigaon has an oil refinery in the town, which is the eight largest refineries of Oil India. It was established on 25 March 2009, and it is located in Dhaligaon, Chirang district, which is 200 Km west of Guwahati. The refinery has two crude distillation units, two delayed coker units, a coke calcination unit with a 2.35 million processing capacity of crude oil each year.
India has a total of 542 parliamentary constituencies. The general category occupies a total of 441 seats, and S.C. and S.T. categories occupy 84 & 47 seats, respectively. Bongaigaon constituency falls under the Barpeta parliamentary constituency. The Lok Sabha or the parliamentary constituency does not fall under the category of reserved seats for S.C. or S.T. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Kumar Deepak Das, who represented Assam Gana Parishad, won the elections by defeating Abdul Khaleque from the Indian National Congress. The winning margin of votes was 60,913 votes. [Also Check - List of Bongaigaon Constituency Candidates]
Bongaigaon is an administrative district of Assam. The district headquarters is located in Bongaigaon itself. Bongaigaon district was formed on 29 September 1989 by combining parts of the Kokrajhar and Goalpara districts. Again in 2004, the district of Chirang was carved out of Bongaigaon district; hence there was a decrease in its size.
Geographically the district of Bongaigaon occupies an area of 1,724 square kilometres. The district is bordered by Barpeta in the East, the Brahmaputra in the south, Kokrajhar in the North, and in the west it shares its borders with Bhutan.
There are three subdivisions in the district, which are- Bongaigaon, Bijni, and North Salmara. Additionally, there are four assembly constituencies under the Bongaigaon district, which are- Bongaigaon, Bijni, Abhayapuri North and Abhayapuri South. Out of these four assembly constituencies, Bijni falls under Kokrajhar parliamentary constituency, and the other three are under the Barpeta constituency.
As per the 2011 census, Bongaigaon district has a population of 7,38,804. Out of the total number, 375818 are males, and 362986 are females. The census report of 2011 states that 14.9% of the entire population of Bongaigaon district lives in urban areas, and 85.1% lives in rural areas. The sex ration of the district in urban areas is 960, and in rural areas, it is 967. The literacy rate combining both urban and rural areas is 69.74%, where the male literacy rate is 63.09%, and the female literacy rate is 54.26%.
People from all religious beliefs live in the Bongaigaon district. Again the 2011 census shows that Bongaigaon has 48.61% Hindu people, 50.22% Islamic people and 1.17 people belonging to other religious practices.
Language-wise there are 49% of the people in Bongaigaon speak Assamese, 43.35% speak Bengali, 3.06% speak Hindi, 1.13% speak Bodo, and 1.45% speak Rajbongshi.
Economically Bongaigaon is not very advanced. A report published in the year 2006 showed Bongaigaon as one of India's most backward districts. It also comes under one of the eleven districts of Assam, which is receiving funds from the Backward Regions Grant Fund Programme.
Bongaigaon also has a few tourist destinations. For example, Eco-park, Bhugeswari temple, Suryapahar, Tea-garden are some of the noteworthy places to visit while in Bongaigaon.
In the 2016 assembly elections, Bongaigaon had a total of 1,59,137 registered voters. Out of the total figure, there are 81,096 male voters, and 78,041 are female voters. In the said election, the voter turnout percentage was 86.57%, and Phani Bhusan Chaudhary, who represented Assam Gana Parishad, won with a margin of 31,320 votes. Shankar Prasad Ray, who contested from the Indian National Congress, was the runner up and got 45,972 votes.
The approximate population of the Bongaigaon assembly constituency is 245508. Out of the total population, 64.07% of people belonged to the rural area, and 35.93% of people lived in urban areas.
In Bongaigaon, 8.9% of people belong to the Scheduled Caste, and 10.25% of people are from the Schedule tribe.
As per the Election commission of India, Bongaigaon has 159137 registered voters in the 2016 assembly elections. Out of these, 81096 are male voters, and 78041 are female voters.
In the last three elections i.e. 2014, 2016, 2019, Assam Gana Parishad is seen to be a dominating political party gathering ample amounts of votes. INC comes in the second position, which got a comparatively lesser amount of votes than the Assam Gana Parishad. In the 2016 Vidhansabha elections, Pani Bhusan Chaudhary of the AGP party won with 77292 votes. The runner in the same election was Shankar Prasad Ray from the Indian National Congress party. The winning margin of Pani Bhusan Chaudhary of AGP was 31320 votes.
In the previous assembly elections, that is, the 2011 elections, the same contender Pani Bhusan Chaudhary from Assam Gana Parishad, won with 77292 votes. The runner up was Prabhat Baisnab from the INC party. The winning margin was 12,397 votes.
The 2019 Lok sabha elections had Abdul Khaleque as the winner who represented Indian National Congress and won with 72008 votes, with a 49.06% share. Kumar Deepak Das was the runner up who contested from the Assam Gana Parishad and got 34.64% of the total share of votes. The lowest of all was Santanu Mukherjee from the BGANP party, who got only 0.33% of the votes.
The percentage of the winning party Assam Gana Parishad is 56.03%, and the runner up party that is INC, is 33.33%. Other losing parties IND, NOTA and IND got 5.14% and 1.72%, and 1.38%, respectively, as we can see that the wave of victory is weighted towards AGP both in the Assembly elections and in the Lok Sabha elections as well.
In the last assembly election, the AGP candidate Phani Bhusan Chaudhary won with a total vote of 77,292 with a 56.03% share. Shankar Prasad Ray from the INC lost the battle with a margin of 31,320 votes. Dr Itesh Bordoloi, an independent candidate, came in the third position by securing 7087 votes. The least of them all is Dhirabati Chaudhary, who got 1902 votes. 2376 votes were also cast in none of the above categories.
As observed through both the assembly and parliamentary election graph, AGP is a dominating party in the said constituency. Therefore, in the coming elections too, it can be predicted that AGP is in a favourable position and might win the 2021 assembly elections as well.