Doomdooma LAC likely to see fierce battle between Congress, BJP

OUR CORRESPONDENT

TINSUKIA: The 125 Doomdooma LAC, a tea belt, is likely to witness a fierce electoral battle between sitting Congress MLA and newly-defected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from Congress even as wage issue has become the major campaign plank for both the parties. The BJP, it seems, is bent on wrestling the prized Doomdooma seat from the Congress and it has turned out to be a prestigious seat for the ruling party.

The Congress has strongly opposed payment of interim daily wage hike of Rs 26 to tea garden workers by Indian Tea Association (ITA) that was announced on Monday, terming it as a gross violation of the Model Code of Conduct.

The Doomdooma LAC has 32 big tea gardens of which 25 belong to multinational companies while rest are privately owned gardens, excluding small tea growers. A major chunk of electorates comprising of 1, 52, 470 voters belong to the tea tribe community, comprising nearly 75 per cent of voters. It has been predominantly a Congress bastion since Independence, including sitting Congress MLA Durga Bhumij, hitherto being fully supported by Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangha (ACMS) and ATTSA. But this time the scenario changed after influential ACMS general secretary Rupesh Gowala took a U-turn overnight and sought BJP ticket. This infuriated tea tribe workers who recently were forced to launch agitation against the BJP to the extent of burning the effigy of the Prime Minister on the tea wage issue at the instance of Gowala. Though Gowala did not resign from ACMS but he still holds considerable influence over tea workers and the same with ATTSA cadres. It is a divided house now. While INC has solid base among Muslim (around 11,000) and Hindi speaking (15,000) voters, Bengali (around 10,000 and Assamese (30,000) voters will be fragmented, admitted a Congress leader.

Lokheswar Moran, the district BJP president who is contesting as independent candidate after he was denied party ticket, is a force to be reckoned with as he is likely to slice around 10,000 BJP votes in his favour. In the 2016 general election, BJP candidate Dilip Moran lost to the INC candidate by a margin of 788 votes, which prompted the State BJP leaders to put up a candidate from the same community to woo garden votes. This equation perhaps will not be effective in this election given the situation prevailing in the gardens now.

According to information, money and liquor game, the integral components in garden election has already stated. The Liquor Monitoring Team, with support of SST, has been doing a laudable job but still needed extra vigil. Trouble usually erupts on the penultimate day of polling in tea gardens over distribution of cash, liquor, mosquito nets and blankets among tea garden workers, allegedly through sardars and borobabus.

Meanwhile, Jayanta Kalita, the Tinsukia District Congress president, said the Indian Tea Association's decision to hike interim wage at this election juncture allegedly to appease tea garden voters was unjust and was clear violation of Model Code of Conduct and was not acceptable.

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