With the remaining four of Assam’s 14 Lok Sabha seats voting in the third phase on Tuesday, polling will come to a close in the state. The seats where polling will be held on Tuesday are Barpeta, Dhubri, Guwahati, and Kokrajhar. The focus in Assam during this election was mainly on the delimitation exercise, which is likely to shape outcomes in key seats. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which has consistently gained ground in Assam, has been asserting that it will further increase its tally in the state. At the moment, the BJP has 10 of the 14 parliamentary seats. During the campaign run, BJP leaders underlined that allies Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and United People’s Party Liberal would help the party increase its tally to “at least 12”. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma went further and claimed that the BJP-led alliance would win 13 seats, declaring that it was “impossible” for it to win Dhubri where Muslim voters make up well over 85% of the electorate. The delimitation exercise which was finalised by the Election Commission in 2023 was the first such exercise that was carried out in the state since 1976. The exercise brought about significant changes in the boundaries of many parliamentary and Assembly seats. One of the changes with a major bearing on this Lok Sabha election was the transformation of the Kaliabor seat. The seat was represented by the family of Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi for nearly three decades, with Gaurav himself representing it in the last two terms. After delimitation, multiple Muslim-majority Assembly segments from Kaliabor were shifted to Nagaon and non-minority segments from Nagaon were transferred to Kaliabor, changing the demographic profile of both seats. Kaliabor, with its new boundaries, was named Kaziranga. With his earlier constituency ceasing to exist, Gogoi contested from Jorhat, going up against sitting BJP MP Tapan Gogoi. Here, the BJP is counting on its organisational strength among the tea garden and tribal communities to fight Gogoi. The other major transformation of the nature of a constituency took place in Barpeta in western Assam. Barpeta was a Muslim-majority seat and was earlier represented by Muslim MPs from the Congress and the All Indian United Democratic Front (AIUDF). With the transfer of several Muslim majority belts to the neighbouring Dhubri constituency, which already had over 75% of Muslim voters, the Muslim voters in the Barpeta came down to about 30%. Now the BJP-led alliance is optimistic about AGP candidate Phanibhusan Choudhury’s chances from the seat. In Dhubri, the contest is being seen largely as a direct one between the AIUDF’s Badruddin Ajmal and the Congress’s Rakibul Hussain. The Nagaon, Karimganj and Darrang-Udalguri seats have sizable Muslim voting populations. The community is also in the majority in Nagaon and Karimganj, but not by as large a margin as in Dhubri. While they are not in a majority in Darrang-Udalguri, they are expected to play a decisive role there. As a result of these political equations, the BJP overtly reached out to the Muslim community in these seats through a pitch of “inclusive development”, a new approach for the party in the state. The other significant change brought about by delimitation in this election was in the Barak Valley, with the removal of the SC-reserved status from the Karimganj seat and the reservation of the Silchar seat for SC candidates.
