Assam By-election Results: Who Won, Who Lost?

So we have got the results of the extravagant by-elections. In fact, every election now-a-days is extravagant with involvement of huge resources. Do we, by any means, know how much money is infused into each election by each candidate beyond the declared sum? 

Anyways, the voters have to choose and they give their mandate. In democracy we accept what the final result says. So, what the Assam results speak? We can at least think of some aspects beyond the exact numbers.

What about Dynasty Politics?

When BJP heads for a historic win in Samaguri where it capitalized the growing disenchantment against the sprawling legacy of Rakibul Husain, we have to remember that dynasty politics was one of the exuberant issues highlighted by it. The ‘dynasty’ in concern is obviously about Rakibul Husain. It seemed to have worked along with a combination of factors that pushed BJP’s victory forward.

Some local Congress leaders and workers felt Rakibul to have cracked the whip to place Tanzil as the candidate. This continued to be an impediment till the end. Moreover, disenchantment against Rakibul was growing in Samaguri in the recent past which was reflected in resigning of important local Congress leaders and joining either BJP or the AGP.

The BJP was astute to capitalize the ground reality. It brought the issue of ‘Dynasty Politics’ to the fore and Congress failed to have countered.  Surely, a critical proportion of Samaguri’s Muslims casted their votes in BJP’s favour, otherwise Diplu Ranjan would have found it hard to take a lead of over 25000.

On the other hand, moving westward from Samaguri the same issue appeared too frail to have an electoral impact. Yes, I am talking about Bongaiogaon where the ‘Dynasty politics’ did not even suffer littlest of the hitch.

Phanibhushan Choudhury has been winning here relentlessly since 1983. The year, written as one of the most tensed time in Assam’s history, Phanibhushan won Bongaigaon as an independent candidate and since 1991 he is the MLA from AGP. Question is how famous his wife Deeptimayee Choudhury had been in the political sphere especially to be considered to be in the electoral fray!

It was quite brazen when Deeptimayee Choudhury’s name was pronounced as the AGP candidate supplanting Phanibhushan, with discontents amongst AGP workers. However, this appeared a snag. Congress remained in a quagmire to capitalize the anti-incumbency.

Behali: Did Gaurav Gogoi Lose or Who Won?

This is a pertinent question. Reactions started pouring in as soon as BJP’s victory in Behali became apparent. Jayanta Malla Baruah reiterated his older statement saying Gaurav Gogoi as a paper tiger. Akhil Gogoi took no time to wave his wand of criticism on Gaurav Gogoi and Congress. Akhil Gogoi said that it was arrogance mainly of Gaurav Gogoi that led the opposition go nil in the bypoll.

The trend is same in social media— a section of supporters of opposition alliance are coalescing with Akhil Gogoi’s version. This point is ought to gather the central focus regarding Congress’s defeat or for that matter the failure of the opposition to stand firmly against BJP in this bypoll.

Gaurav Gogoi has responded as accepting Behali’s defeat as the commander-in-chief. However, there remains ample space to ponder. To BJP’s credit, it has secured its solid vote of over 50,000 in 2016, 2021 and 2024 election. However, BJP’s vote has gone down by a meager 2600. On the other hand, Congress could have polled 28,000 votes in 2016 and the joint candidate of CPI(ML) polled about 21,000 votes in 2021. This time Congress’ vote rose to about 42,000, the same amount it got in 2011 when Pallab Lochan Das won from Behali. This indicates that Congress has increased its strength.

However, on the question about opposition unity, Congress would surely have to take the lion’s share of the responsibility. In fact Congress owns the biggest onus. Without repeating what happened during the declaration of candidate for Behali and how it led to dismantling of the opposition unity, one thing has to be highlighted, which again hovers around Congress. The party should have overcome the intra party confusions (or conflict?) which may be rooted in lobbyism. From the very beginning things should have been clearly shared with the parties in the united platform. But on contrary, the differences of opinions of the Congress leadership regarding candidature remained unhidden.

One thing is clear that opposition remaining intact would have impacted the outcome, had it resolved the issue of candidature at the beginning. The idea of ‘United Opposition’ suffered the loss in Behali. And if the opposition continues mud-slinging on one another, it may not come out of the dismay very easily that it has suffered in the bypoll.