Dear reader,
With the third and final phase a few days away, poll season in Assam is about to draw to a close — but not without a dose of drama!
Three crucial developments happened over the last week.
For starters, a BPF candidate — part of the Congress-alliance — went ‘missing’ for a day, only to have been traced later to find that he was switching to the BJP. Read all about the biggest defection this election, where a candidate has not only switched sides but retired from the poll battle altogether, and strangely enough, is now campaigning for the person who was his main rival till a day ago.
A polling station in Assam’s Ratabari Assembly seat will go to re-poll, after an an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) was found in a vehicle owned by a BJP candidate. The episode, which happened on Wednesday night, is perhaps the biggest controversy this election and has brought the Election Commission of India, as well as the BJP, into spotlight.
BJP’s main Northeast man, Himanta Biswa Sarma has been barred from campaigning for 48 hours after an ECI notice for his comments on ally-turned-opposition politician Hagrama Mohilary. This means Sarma, whose constituency Jalukbari, goes to vote on the 6th, won’t be able to campaign in his own seat. Read here.
Ground Realities
We went to Barak Valley — Assam’s Partition frontier where memories are shaped by the scars of 1947 — and found an extremely polarised landscape, between the regions to communities. While Barak is traditionally known to be more polarised than rest of Assam, voices on the ground say the last five years have accelerated it like never before.
“They can build all the roads in the world but then they are spreading hate.”
Also, an interview with Sushmita Dev, Congress’s Barak face, who told us, “CAA, polarisation are vote bank tools of BJP… Jobs are the biggest issue”
While Barak Valley went to polls on April 1, we have a dispatch from char-dwellers of Lower Assam, which will vote on April 6. What’s at play here? Identity politics, marginalisation and some poetry.
Beyond the Radar
While there are some obvious election stories, there are some not-so-obvious ones too. This time we have one about a dynastic candidate like no other, and another about the politics of Article 254(A) which the hills tribes are demanding.
Finally,
Don’t miss reading about the other Ajmal — the one who lives in the shadow of his famous brother.
Until next week,
Tora Agarwala
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