Battle Royale

Tucked in the north-east corner of Assam, Lakhimpur comprises nine Assembly segments. While one of them, Majuli, is located in the middle of the river Brahmputra, three lie on its southern bank and five on its northern bank. Last time, the Congress had finished ahead in all segments except Majuli.

The constituency’s population comprises Mishings, tea labourers, upper-caste Hindus and a small concentration of Muslims. This time, they have almost unanimously shut their eyes to the poll process. What existed in the name of a road network here was washed away in the floods and now you can travel here only on foot, boats or bullockcarts. Kargil has no meaning here, neither has Sonia Gandhi’s origin. The only issue is under-development.

And the AGP’s answer is Sarbananda Sonowal. The party has got a new lease of life with the former All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) president joining it. Sonowal entered into state politics just a month ago, but he has already become one of the most high-profile candidates in Assam. He has been in student politics for more than 15 years and was the AASU president for seven.

“I have got a good response and I do expect that will translate into votes on October 3,” says a tired-looking Sonowal, criss-crossing the constituency. He is confident that the fact that he is the first candidate here from the southern bank and more importantly, from Tinsukia district, where the Congress vote bank lies, will help him. Lakhimpur covers Doomdoma, Chabua and Sadiya assembly segments on the south bank. Each of these has a considerable population of tea labourers, who have traditionally voted for the Congress. TheAGP is hoping to break this hold with Sonowal, who hails from Chabua.

The party is also banking heavily on the AASU network. The union’s general secretary, Amiya Bhuyan, is from the constituency and AASU men are openly canvassing for Sonowal. However, AASU adviser Samujjal Bhattacharryya claims: “The AASU being an apolitical organisation we are only holding citizens’ meeting calling the people to elect a capable person. But we do believe that regionalism only can solve the problem of the state.”

Another advantage Sonowal enjoys is that the people of this constituency never return an incumbent. The Congress, however, is still going in with its last-time winner, Ranee Narah. What makes the choice even more surprising is that Narah is a political greenhorn with no mass base. A former cricketer and Youth Congress leader, she is believed to have got the ticket last time on basically the “woman and youth” appeal and her husband, Bharat Nath.

The latter was a fiery leader during the Assam agitation andhas been winning elections as an MLA from Dhakuakhana assembly segment uninterrupted since 1985. This time, Narah was nominated on the pretext of retaining all the winning candidates.

But the Congress is now paying the price for this move. One of the leaders who was snubbed in the process was Bolin Kuli, and he is now in the race as the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidate. A former MP who is widely respected and has a clean image, he was considered a strong candidate for Lakhimpur. When the Congress, which had denied him the ticket in 1998, spurned him again this time, Kuli left the party and joined the NCP. A disgruntled Kuli says: “Narah was an MP for 13 months but not once did she visit the people during the floods nor did she spend 13 minutes in Delhi for the constituency.”

If Kuli can cut into Congress votes, so can Independent Ranoj Pegu. He is the undisputed leader of the Mishing community, which has nearly 1,50,000 votes. His presence is expected to stop the Mishing vote from going tothe Congress. The AGP as well as Sonowal is taking heart from this. “If the split was not there,” acknowledges former AASU activist and a Sonowal supporter in Chabua, “it would have been difficult to challenge Ranee.”

Another person Narah has to contend with is Uday Shankar Hazarika of the BJP. Last time, he came second in four of the Assembly segments here. In fact, Hazarika is bound to increase his vote share from 1998’s 20 per cent on the strength of the BJP wave.

As for the AGP, the devastating floods and the inaction by the Prafulla Kumar Mahanta government may yet drown Sonowal’s hopes. Even AASU general secretary Bhuyan, who belongs to the region, fears this. “As a person, Sonowal’s popularity is unparalleled in the constituency,” he says, “but very few like the party he is representing. The AGP is most hated here.” Sonowal is not oblivious to this. Reminded that the party he was representing had hardly done anything for Lakhimpur in three years, he fires back: “I will continue tocriticise the AGP for the sake of the state.”