Congress election campaign managers privately admit that it will be difficult to retain the party’s present tally of seven. It is likely to decline. The BJP, on the other hand, may bag between four and seven seats. The Bodo Peoples Party is expected to win the Kokrajhar seat, while the All India United Democratic Forum, a minority organisation, is expected to win two to three seats. The AIDUF has good relations with the Congress both at the State and in the Centre.

However, what is remarkable and admitted on all hands is the rise in the number of BJP sympathisers. CPI leader and former Deputy Speaker of the Assam Assembly, Giasuddin Ahmed, who is just back from an intensive campaigning for his party candidates, said he was surprised to find that the RSS, which had been working silently, has grown phenomenally. As a result, the BJP’s mass base has widened. The RSS, he found, was trying to polarise the electorate on communal lines. Congress poll managers admitted, on the condition of anonymity, that two or three of their sitting MPs will find it hard to defend their seats this time.

What has turned public opinion against the Congress this time is, according to many, is several corruption cases and the ‘inept’ handling of the administration by chief minister Tarun Gogoi. Added to this is the infighting in the party. It is a public secret that one minister in Gogoi’s cabinet, Himanta Biswa Sharma, has been trying to dislodge the CM and take his position. Reportedly, he has access to the Congress High Command in Delhi. Congress candidates in Mongaldai and Guwahati East have been accused of large-scale sealing. That there was substance in the charges was confirmed by the Election Commission ordering re-poll in several booths of these two constituencies. Angry voters burnt effigies of Gogoi and Sharma in East Guwahati after the alleged rigging was detected.

The question of infiltrators from East Pakistan and then Bangladesh has been a live issue in Assam all along. It is on this question that the six-year long ‘Assam Movement’ was carried on from 1979 to 1985. It ended after the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi made the Assam Agreement, in which one of the signatories was Prafulla Mahanta, who became Chief Minister twice. Now, Narendra Modi’s public warning that if the BJP comes to power then all ‘Bangladeshis’ will be deported, has created fear among the Bengali Muslims. The general perception of the people is that all Bengali Muslims are Bangladeshis, no matter whether they came before or after the ‘cut-off’ date of March 26, 1971, the day Bangladesh declared independence. Modi drew large crowds in all the places where he addressed election meetings. A Congress election manager said: “This is not an election but a packaging and marketing of a personality.”

The worst loser in the current elections may be the BJP. Infighting and corruption has totally disillusioned the people about this party. Some top AGP leaders like former Agriculture Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary have joined the BJP. Many poll watchers fear that AGP this time may draw blank in the polls. The AGP’s social base among the Assamese people have been appropriated by the RSS/BJP. Another party which will keep company of the AGP is the Trinamool Congress. All its candidates, including the late President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed’s son who is the TMC candidate at Barpeta are expected to lose by huge margins.

Among other States, in neighbouring Meghalaya the Congress is expected to retain the Shillong seat while the Tura seat is likely to be won by Purno Sangma, a former Speaker of the Lok Sabha. Sangma is currently a member of the Meghalaya Assembly. Incidentally, the Congress candidate here is a 27 year old youth named Vincent A. Pala. He is pitted against the 67 year old war horse Sangma.

In Tripura, the clean image of Chief Minister Manik Sarkar will help the CPI-M win both the plains and hills seats as in the past. In Manipur, the BJP is a frontrunner for the Imphal valley seat, while the Congress is expected to do better in the hills. What is worrying the Congress greatly is its waning influence in its traditional stronghold – Assam. (IPA Service)