The Opposition has taken a severe drubbing. The AGP which had 25 seats in the outgoing House has been reduced to ten. The party was virtually wiped out from Upper Assam. It failed to win a single seat in the five Upper Assam districts which send 28 members to the Assembly. Its former Chief Minister Prafulla Mahanta was defeated by Congress minister Rockybul Hussain in Samaguri by nineteen thousand votes, though he managed to retain the Bahrampur seat. Most AGP stalwarts like party president Chandra Mohan Patowary, Phani Bhusan Choudhdury, ex-ministers Atul Bora, Ramen Kalita, ex-president and former education minister Brindaban Goswami – all kissed the dust.

The AGP was so sure of there being a hung Assembly that it formed a four-member committee headed by Phani Bhusan Coudhury to hold talks with BJP and other parties if the AGP secured enough seats to form a government in alliance with others. The BJP was also looking forward to becoming a partner in a possible alliance government. In the event, it fared even worse. Its strength was halved from ten to five. This is a very significant development because the party was harping on the “threat posed by the illegal immigrants from Bangladesh” and the danger of the local people being outnumbered by the Bangladeshis. But it did not work.

The Left which has been on the decline since the nineties of the last century, drew a complete blank. In the last Assembly, they had three MLAs, two from CPI-M and one from CPI. One of the traditional causes of the Left, namely organizing the peasants’ struggle for land, has been taken over by the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samity –a new non-party organization led by its young general secretary, Akhil Gogoi, who has Left leanings.

Why did the people turn their face against the Opposition? Why did the charges of corruption against the Congress failed to cut much with the electorate? One reason, according to noted political commentator and columnist Nitya Bora, is that the memory of the stinking corruption indulged in by the AGP during its two terms in power, especially the Rs. 400 crore LoC scam, is still too fresh in the minds of the people to make any corruption charge levelled by the party against others sound credible or convincing. Also, the people have more or less accepted that corruption by those in power cannot be eliminated and a ruling party should be judged more by its actual performance for the welfare of the people.

So the Congress is firmly back in saddle and Gogoi is reigning supreme. His success in bringing the ULFA leaders to the negotiating table and isolating the hardliner Paresh Baruah, chief of the armed wing of the outfit in the process is a major achievement which has gone down well with the people. He has excellent equations with the Prime Minister and the party president.

However, the Congress does have some points to worry about. One is the growth of the AIUDF. It is a secular party but its mass following is predominantly Muslim, one of the traditional vote banks of the Congress. The influence of the AIUDF is growing as reflected in the fact that it has almost doubled its tally of legislators from 10 to eighteen this time. The AIUDF leader, Badruddin Ajmal, is not averse to cooperating with the Congress. When everyone was keeping his fingers crossed about the possible poll outcome, the Congress lost no time in reaching out to Ajmal.

AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh met Ajmal in Delhi on May 9 at the latter’s residence. Next day, before Ajmal left for Assam, the two had a long telephonic conversation. Now the Congress has no need for support from other parties, but it may be wiser not to alienate the AIUDF but to keep the interaction going, even though a section of Assam Congressmen are known to be against a formal tie-up of the Congress with the AIUDF.

The Congress has also to be more attentive to its traditional constituency of the tea garden labourers, who have solidly backed the Congress all through. The INTUC holds its sway over them but some other organisations like the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh are getting their teeth into the tea population. The BJP has won some seats from the tea belt. (IPA Service)