In fact, the TMC in Assam is a party of Congress “rejects” – that is, those who were denied Congress tickets. Most are unknown. A few who are known are known for the wrong reasons. A TMC candidate this time was a Congress minister once. Then he was not nominated. He left the party he was associated with for decades and crossed over to the BJP, fought the elections on a BJP ticket and lost. After spending some time in political wilderness, he returned to his parent party. He was denied a Congress ticket this time again and now he has made it to the TMC.

But the Congress did suffer a jolt when the octogenarian former Chief Minister Syeda Anwara Taimur left the party and joined the Badruddin Ajmal-led AIUDF after the Congress decided to retire her from electoral politics. She is now contesting as an AIUDF candidate. On the other hand, one of Ajmal’s close associates, Hafiz Rashed Ahmed Chouhdury, resigned from the AIUDF Election Committee, complaining that Ajmal had arbitrarily changed some candidates without consulting others.

But insiders say more serious differences had cropped up between the two. Choudhury, one of the founders of the now defunct United Minorities Front in the 1980s, has been consistently following an anti-Congress line. Ajmal, on the other hand, is reportedly not averse to having a post-poll understanding with the Congress. Unlike Choudhury, Ajmal does not want to restrict his political role to Assam only. He envisages a role for himself in national politics. Both Ajmal’s son and brother are AIUDF candidates.

By and large, however, the Opposition parties do not seem to be optimistic about making it to the Janata Bhavan. A look at their poll manifestos confirms this. Their poll promises are either platitudes or inanities like providing a “clean and corruption-free government” or relate to issues that are outside the powers of a State Government and lie in the domain of the Centre. Take the BJP, for example. It talks of enacting a “special law to tackle corruption”; detecting and deporting all illegal immigrants from Bangladesh “within a year” (something that could not be done in decades and is considered to be practically impossible); a “five-fold increase in the strength of the BSF” which is a Central para-military force; cancellation of the Lower Subansiri Hydro Project in Arunachal Pradesh; and “tough military action” against foreign fundamentalists, religious fundamentalists and insurgents.

The AGP’s poll manifesto is no better. It promises to bring an “anti-corruption Bill” in the Legislature to provide a corruption-free government, as if due to the absence of such a law corruption has grown and once the law is passed, corruption will vanish. It talks of creating one hundred thousand job opportunities for the unemployed every year, without explaining how. It assures making available rice at Rs. 2 a kg to BPL people and “putting pressure on the Centre” to introduce electric trains in Assam.

For all this the Congress is not worried. Its two main concerns are, first, the possibility of the AIUDF increasing its support among the Muslims at the cost of the Congress, and secondly, the gradual erosion of its strength among the tea-garden labourers, a traditional vote bank of the Congress. The BJP has been slowly making inroads into the tea community concentrated mainly in the Dibrugarh and Tinsuskia districts of Upper Assam. Both are considered Congress strongholds. In the 2006 Assembly polls, however, the Congress lost the Dibrugarh and Duliajan seats to the BJP – Dibrugarh by just 176 votes and Duliajan by 16,190 votes. But this time around, the BJP has built up a greater support base among the tea population.

The All Assam Tea Tribes Students’ Association (AATTSA) has also emerged as a powerful body in the last few years. It demands that only men from the tea community should represent the nearly three dozen Assembly constituencies where the tea population is the deciding factor. Recently, former APCC president Pavan Singh Ghatowar faced an AATTSA demonstration at Sivasagar protesting lack of development and shouting slogans like “Go Back Ghatowar.” It was quite embarrassing for Ghatowar who himself belongs to the tea workers’ community and is the president of the INTUC-affiliated Assam Cha Mazdoor Sangh (ACMS). (IPA Service)