GUWAHATI, April 4 - The Congress is confident of winning in at least 43 of the 65 Assembly constituencies which went to polls today, claimed the president of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee, Anjan Dutta.
Talking to The Assam Tribune after the first phase of polls, Dutta said that the Congress made the assessment based on the reports of the micro booth management committees of the party. He said that for the first time, Congress formed micro booth management committees and the voting percentage increased because the Congress volunteers were in constant touch with the voters all over the State.
Dutta admitted that the Congress failed to do well in the tea belt in the last Lok Sabha polls because the BJP had fielded two persons from the tea community-Kamakhya Prasad Tassa and Rameswar Teli. But the situation has changed now as the people of the tea community were frustrated with the lack of performance of both Tassa and Teli, he added.
The APCC president said that several factors contributed to the change of the mindset of the people of the tea community. The BJP-led Government tried to stop the subsidized ration given to the tea garden workers and Congress strongly opposed it. On the other hand, it was the Congress, which came forward to help the people belonging to the tea tribes to get their names included in the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The tea tribes were having problems in including names in NRC as they were confused about the documents required and the Congress stood by them at that time, he said. He also said that the Congress had also promised to create a directorate for the welfare of the ex tea tribes.
