High voltage contest between Akhil Gogoi, BJP and INC on the cards in Sivasagar
CORRESPONDENT
Sivasagar, March 11 : Altogether 14 candidates will contest the Assam Assembly elections from 103 Amguri, 107 Thowra and 108 Sivasagar constituency after cancellation of Amguri independent candidate Dharmewar Ghatowar’s papers yesterday.
A high voltage three-cornered fight is likely between Surobhi Rajkumari of the BJP, Subhramitra Gogoi of the INC and Akhil Gogoi of the Raijor Dal in the elections 2021 in 108 Sivasagar LAC. Three other candidates in the fray are Ajit Hazarika of the NCP, Hemanta Baruah (Independent) and Rupa Bora (Independent) who will have little impact on others' election results, it appears.
In the 2016 general elections, former Speaker and four times MLA could return from the constituency despite the strong Modi wave for three reasons - his personal image as a dignified Speaker of the Assembly, the strong party organizational network with large chunk of Muslim voters who have a traditional bent towards INC and division of anti-Congress voters, especially youth leader late Aswini Chetia of the ATASU ate up a large chunk getting over 10,188 votes.
But in the 2021 elections, Subhamitra Gogoi, the youth Congress leader, will have a stiff challenge in winning the seat as one of the ASCC general secretaries Kalyan Gogoi has burst out criticizing the APCC leadership for overlooking his candidature. His supporters may desert the Congress candidate and join hands with rival Raijor Dal, AJP or the BJP.
However, the anti- CAA stir which rocked the state, price rise, privatization of PSUs and growing unemployment among the youths and other issues have created a favourable climate for Subhamitra to fish in. Subhramitra has a plus point as the constituency does not have any tea gardens which have come under BJP influence in a large measure and the influential AGP leader Bharati Das who has joined the Congress recently with her supporters. Subhamitra declared his assets to be of Rs 12 ,29 938 and his wife has a balance of Rs 14,85,502 in the bank.
Surobhi Rajkumari, who lost the last election by a bare margin of 542 votes, will face a two-pronged opposition –one from traditional rival Congress and the other AJP-Raijor Dal combined.
Akhil Googoi’s candidature from the constituency has already drawn national importance and added much enthusiasm among the electorates but the final contest, according to a cross section of voters, the fight will be mainly between the Congress and the BJP. Surobhi Rajkumari, in her affidavit, declared her total assets to be of Rs 19,19,494 while her husband Suren Rajkonwar’s property to be Rs 46,66,009 and her two sons have Rs 4,19,894 in the bank.
Surobhi told mediapersons that she will fight the elections on issuesthe national party outlines with an agenda of development. She added that Akhil Gogoi is not a factor yet that can derail her march to Dispur. Empowering the Panchayat with cash grants under 14th and 15th Finance Commission for rural roads, embankments, light and sanitary, educational gain in infrastructure will likely influence voters to vote for the ruling party irrespective of candidates.
Akhil’s supporters that took part in the rally for filing nomination are optimistic that the people will come out in large numbers to vote for a change to politics of caste, creed and vote bank beneficiary. But the problem that has cropped up among the voters is that the election symbol of Raijor Dal has not been announced till date.
Furthermore, while most of the Raijor Dal leaders have been declared candidates of the party and are busy in their respective constituencies, there is no prominent leader left to campaign for Akhil in Sivasagar till this day. Akhil Gogoi declared he has Rs 60,497 in the account and he does not have any immovable asset while his wife has Rs 18,72,158 in the bank and is a owner of assets worth Rs 30,28,865.
