Barpeta (Assam): The third and the last phase of the Assam general elections will see four parliamentary constituencies going to polls – all of them in the lower Assam division spanning from Guwahati to Dhubri with Barpeta and Kokrajhar falling in between.
With a new configuration of constituencies post-delimitation in Assam, the Barpeta Lok Sabha seat has attracted particular attention from the state’s political observers. From a minority Muslim stronghold, after delimitation, the Barpeta Lok Sabha constituency has become a Hindu majority.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is contesting 11 of the 14 Lok Sabha seats from the north-eastern state. It has left the Barpeta seat to its state ally, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), and another seat, the adjoining Muslim-majority Dhubri, which too shall see voting this May 7.
AGP’s Phani Bhushan Choudhury, a former minister in the Sarbananda Sonowal government and an MLA from the Bongaigaon constituency, is the BJP-AGP combine’s candidate in Barpeta. An array of candidates is challenging him. However, what makes it essentially a three-cornered contest are two candidates from Assam’s united opposition – the UOFA (United Opposition Forum Assam), a conglomerate of 16 opposition parties.
The CPI(M), a member of the UOFA, is contesting the Barpeta seat with Manoranjan Talukdar, a sitting MLA from the Sorbhog assembly segment within the Barpeta Lok Sabha constituency, as its candidate. The Congress has named Dip Bayan for the seat.
Leaders of political parties from the UOFA and observers of politics pertaining to the Barpeta seat post-delimitation whom The Wire spoke to indicate that though the AGP-BJP combine is banking considerably on the redistribution of the assembly segments, Choudhury’s victory could have been challenging had the Opposition launched a joint candidate.
A reconfigured constituency post-delimitation
Curiously, the delimitation exercise was carried out in Assam by the Election Commission (EC) along with a reshaped Jammu and Kashmir, while the rest of the states would see it rolling only in 2026.
Therefore, in common discourse across Assam, it is not uncommon to hear that the delimitation exercise carried out in the state was a reconfiguration of assembly and parliamentary constituencies to ensure maximum electoral benefit to the ruling BJP. The reconfigured Barpeta Lok Sabha constituency is also being widely seen through that prism by many, simply because delimitation pulled out of it some assembly segments which have been Muslim strongholds. Such constituencies, for instance, Chenga, Baghbar, Jania, and Sarukhetri, have now been attached to the Muslim-dominated Dhubri Lok Sabha seat.
The delimitation exercise in Assam had been much-hyped by the ruling party leaders as a “measure to protect the rights of the ‘khilonjiya’ or the indigenous people of the state”. Chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had famously led that move. The opposition, on the other hand, had alleged that the delimitation exercise was to serve Sarma’s own political interest and perpetuation.
When it comes to the ‘khilonjia’ sentiment, Barpeta particularly stands out, a factor that AGP’s Choudhury is banking on. It was in Barpeta district that the All Assam Students Union (AASU), leading the anti-foreigner agitation in Assam in the 1980s, had declared its first swahid (martyr) in its local leader Khorgeswar Talukdar.
Talukdar had died in police action against AASU’s move then to bar Begum Abida Ahmed, the wife of former president Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, from filing her nomination papers to contest the 1980 general elections from the Barpeta Lok Sabha seat as a Congress candidate. AGP having borne of that movement, the Barpeta Lok Sabha seat, therefore, has always had a fair share of AGP voters. It is not difficult to sense a feeling of discontent among the AGP’s voter base that a larger share of minority voters had ensured that the seat goes to either the Congress or the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF). Local BJP leader Kamal Kumar Medhi held up that sentiment while defending the recent delimitation exercise.
“Barpeta was once the constituency of Beli Ram Das, who became the MP from here in 1952 in the first ever general elections of independent India, also of Renuka Devi Barkataki. Uddhab Barman of CPI(M) won for two terms from Barpeta. It was not the constituency of the Khaleques and the Ajmals,” he told The Wire.
Medhi had referred to the sitting Congress MP from Barpeta, Abdul Khaleque, and AIUDF founder Badruddin Ajmal whose party had pocketed the Barpeta seat in 2014. Medhi’s communal lens had, however, left out the fact that between 1952 and 2019, the Barpeta seat had sent a Muslim MP to parliament as many as six times, including former president Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed in 1967 and 1971.
He gave a common refrain noted among AGP voters in Barpeta, “Over time, migration (read illegal Bangladeshis) changed the demographics of Barpeta.” He added that the sentiment that his party is hoping will romp home success for its joint candidate in Barpeta, “After so many years, post-delimitation, it is going to gain its lost glory which is a pride for the indigenous people.”
Post-delimitation, Medhi pointed out, “Barpeta has approximately 13 lakh Hindu voters while Muslims are about 6.5 lakhs.”
Contributing to the goal of his party’s ‘abki bar 400 paar’, Choudhury would win the seat with a thumping majority, he predicted.
Also read: Whither Assam Muslims? The Story of Group’s Exclusion From Political, Public Spheres
Cracks in opposition unity?
Such a prediction, however, is not rare within the opposition circles too, simply because they stand under a divided house.
In the run-up to these elections, Congress’s sitting MP, Khaleque, had resigned from the party – unhappy about the state leadership’s decision to drop him from Barpeta. Few days later, he, however, returned to the party after the central leadership’s intervention. The party then named Dip Bayan as its official candidate.
However, a day later, the CPI(M) announced Manoranjan Talukdar from Barpeta. This is the only Lok Sabha seat the party is contesting in these elections in Assam. That claim aside, several people that The Wire spoke to on the ground believe that Talukdar, a sitting MLA from Sorbhog, one of the assembly segments within the Lok Sabha constituency, enjoys considerable popularity among the voters, and therefore, the Congress should have made him the UOFA’s joint candidate.
“Congress should not have filed its candidate in Barpeta. Talukdar, being the opposition’s joint candidate, could have changed the scenario as Choudhury is not that popular,” Amiya Mahanta, a social activist and former AGP leader from Sarupeta, told The Wire.
Mahanta who had left the AGP some time ago because of its support to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), felt, “Talukdar can raise the cause of Assam in the parliament strongly; he is a learned person.”
“I am supporting Talukdar and have also told others to vote for him this time,” she said, adding, “I don’t like doing everything in the name of Hindutva. I am also a Hindu, but politics over religion subsides basic issues like price hike, unemployment, etc.” She called the delimitation of Barpeta “an abrupt process.
“We disliked it. Only making Barpeta a Hindu majority seat won’t have helped the BJP-AGP alliance win it. I feel there is a strong undercurrent that the opposition could have successfully capitalised on.”
Mahanta’s take on the need for a joint candidate of the opposition in Barpeta to upset the BJP-AGP candidate was echoed by several others that The Wire spoke to. Jitendra Kumar Choudhury, a senior Barpeta-based journalist reporting for the Assamese daily, Dainik Asom, told this writer that the anti-incumbency votes of the BJP-AGP government would be split in his Lok Sabha constituency as voters have been left confused by the two candidates launched from the opposition’s side. His sense is, “One joint candidate, preferably Manoranjan Talukdar, could have changed the scenario on the ground.”
Saying that Talukdar is a strong candidate, Ajad Ali, a veteran politician who had contested assembly elections from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in 2001, 2006, and 2011, believes it would still be a tight contest between AGP’s Choudhury and him. Ali, though, felt that the declaration of Talukdar as a joint candidate by the UOFA would have helped to swing a victory for him far more easily than banking on Dip Bayan.
Perhaps sensing such a pulse on the ground, as many as 77 eminent personalities of Assam led by noted public intellectual Hiren Gohain also wrote an appeal letter to the state Congress president Bhupen Borah, urging him to withdraw Dip Bayan’s candidature from Barpeta.
Raijor Dal leader and Sibsagar MLA Akhil Gogoi as well as Asam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) president Lurinjyoti Gogoi (the opposition’s joint candidate from the Dibrugarh seat) – both part of the UOFA, were also vocal in support of Talukdar. Both of them had urged the Congress to withdraw its candidate from Barpeta. All such appeals seemingly appeared fatuous for a steadfast Congress though.
CPI(M) state general secretary Suprakash Talukdar told The Wire that his party had claimed the Barpeta seat in various meetings of the UOFA, even though no formal discussion was held over seat-sharing among them. “Still, Manoranjan Talukdar as the candidate for Barpeta was like a general consensus (for the united opposition). Otherwise, we wouldn’t have received such support from so many eminent personalities, including leaders of the parties belonging to the UOFA,” said Suprakash Talukdar.
He also pointed out that while the BJP has filled 11 candidates of its own, leaving three for its allies, the AGP and the UPPL, the Congress has left only one seat for its partners. “It was indeed a very poor deal,” he added.
Also read: Opposition Must Not Let Small Differences Come in the Way of the Battle to Save Democracy
Since there is no formal seat-sharing arrangement within the UOFA, opposition parties have fielded candidates against each other in some other constituencies of Assam too. For instance, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had launched Manoj Dhanowar in the Dibrugarh Lok Sabha seat while Lurinjyoti Gogoi enjoyed the support of all other opposition parties there.
AAP had launched candidates in the Sonitpur and Guwahati Lok Sabha seats too. AAP Assam president Bhaben Choudhury was projected as the candidate in Guwahati much before Congress had declared its candidate for the seat. “We, however, decided to withdraw from Guwahati for the larger interest of defeating the BJP, and to support Meera Borthakur of Congress,” Anurupa Dekaraja, a senior spokesperson of the party in Assam told The Wire.
Though there were no seat sharing-arrangements between the UOPA parties, Anurupa mentioned that for the Guwahati seat, all like-minded parties requested AAP to withdraw its candidate. “So we did it, but Congress didn’t do the same in Barpeta even after widespread discontent,” she underlined.
When asked about it, Mehdi Alom Bora, Congress spokesperson and co-chairman of the media department, told The Wire that there was a “communication gap regarding the Barpeta candidate”.
“The CPI(M) lacked firm pursuance on the matter unlike Lurinjyoti who claimed the Dibrugarh seat from the beginning,” said Bora.
Substantiating that claim, another Congress spokesperson and the chairman of the media department, Bedabrat Bora, told The Wire “The matter came to us, but as both Congress and CPI(M) are national parties, finalising the candidate was not solely under the ambit of the APCC (Assam Pradesh Congress Committee).”
“Still, state president Bhupen Borah had forwarded the matter to the Assam in-charge, Jitender Singh. The CPI(M) leadership in the state was urged to go to Delhi to have a discussion with Mallikarjun Kharge which they didn’t honour,” he said.
However, on a categorical question on seat-sharing of the UOFA parties in Barpeta, state president Borah gave a different take to reporters at a press conference held jointly with Kharge in Guwahati recently. He gave the impression that had the CPI(M) named another candidate, Congress would have been open to a joint candidate in Barpeta.
“If Manoranjan Talukdar (the only CPI-M MLA in Assam) becomes an MP, then the Assam assembly would be minus CPI(M). Therefore, we asked them to think of a different candidate. In the last assembly elections, Talukdar became an MLA with Congress’s support.”
Notably, Barpeta has several candidates too from the Muslim community, including Dulu Ahmed, a former AJP (Assam Jatiya Parishad) leader, who had unsuccessfully contested from the Hajo assembly seat in 2021. Some political observers say he could also divide the opposition votes within the minority community.
Though the AIUDF is not a part of the UOFA in Assam, it has not contested the Barpeta seat and has instead extended support to the CPI(M) candidate. How much of it would aid Talukdar is anyone’s guess as the AIUDF’s major bases have shifted to the Dhubri Lok Sabha constituency post-delimitation.
While Char Chapori Sahitya Parishad president and well-known Assamese writer Hafiz Ahmed still believes that Barpeta’s East Bengal-origin Muslim voters, the primary base of the AIUDF in Assam, ‘will support Talukdar for the larger cause of defeating the BJP-AGP alliance,’ some others, whom The Wire spoke to on the ground, opined that the majority of Muslim votes would be cast in favour of the Congress in these elections.
Still, no one in the opposition tent contradicts that their voter base in Barpeta, both within the Hindu and the Muslim electorate, would not be divided for want of a joint fight. It only infers that the path for victory for the BJP-AGP alliance in Barpeta has never been so smooth.
The author is a Guwahati-based independent journalist.
