OUR CORRESPONDENT
MANGALDAI: Uncertainty has gripped the 67 Mangaldai (SC) LAC over the fight for supremacy in the poll battle scheduled on April 1 in phase II of the assembly election as both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress candidates have been getting support from the electorates.
Though four candidates, namely existing legislator Guru Jyoti Das of the BJP, former minister and two-time legislator Basanta Das of Congress, Gokul Baruah of Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) and Jitendra Sarkar of Voters Party International have qualified for the poll battle in the district headquarters constituency reserved for the Scheduled Caste community, a strong contest will be confined between BJP and Congress only.
A total number of 2,36,515 voters, of which 1,16,397 are female and 1,20,118 are male, will elect their candidate from this constituency. The constituency in 1978 was represented by Anil Das of Janata Party, Kartik Sarkar of Congress in 1983, Nilamani Das of AGP in 1986, Nakul Das of Congress in 1991, Hiren Kumar Das of AGP in 1996 and in 2006, Basanta Das of Congress in 2001 and in 2011 while Guru Jyoti Das of BJP came out with the winning smile with a huge margin in 2016.
In the last assembly election, Guru Jyoti Das – a fresher in politics - secured a total of 73,423 votes while powerful minister Basanta Das of Congress secured only 51, 378 votes. However, Hiren Kumar Das-the two time legislator of AGP- joined the BJP and within overnight contested as the AIUDF candidate to secure only 48,417 votes. Significantly, in the last Parliamentary election, BJP parliamentarian Dilip Saikia secured only 80,253 votes while defeated Congress candidate Bhubaneswar Kalita could secure 1,03,132 votes with a difference of 20,000 votes.
But in the election this year, both the candidates projected by the AIUDF could not qualify in the scrutiny of their nomination papers paving the way for a straight fight between the Congress and the BJP. Though the Congress in this election, with their greater alliance with AIUDF and BPF, are hopeful to secure about 1,00,000 votes with 51,378 votes secured in 2016 along with 48,417 votes secured by the AIUDF, things are not going on smoothly. A large number of young voters belonging to the religious minority community in the constituency are openly extending their support to BJP candidate Guru Jyoti Das in appreciation of the pace of development activities initiated by Guru Jyoti Das and his personal clean image and good behaviour. This time Guru Jyoti Das, accompanied by his supporters and well-wishers, has been visiting the villages mostly on foot.
On the other hand, Congress candidate Basanta Das is also hopeful to win support from the religious minority communities and has also concentrated his campaign in the areas once known as the stronghold of the BJP. He too preferred to make his campaign mostly on padayatra.