The battle for supremacy between BJP’s prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi and Congress’ GenNext leader Rahul Gandhi began from six constituencies in the unlikeliest of places – the northeast.
The stakes for both Congress and BJP are high in the eight-state northeast with 25 seats that could prove crucial in the numbers game. While the former is desperate to improve upon its 2009 show of 13 seats, the latter has campaigned aggressively to nudge the Congress out of its bastion.
Voting in Tripura and Assam picked up yesterday as voters in the two northeastern states of India became the first ones to kick-start the nine-phase 16th Lok Sabha elections in the country. Around 60% of the electorate had cast their votes till 2pm on Monday as polling was held in Tripura West, one of the two constituencies in Left-ruled Tripura, an official said.
The BJP has channelled its energy on Congress-ruled Assam, where the party feels it has the best chances in the region despite demographic constraints. The state’s ethnic diversity besides the Congress hold on three major vote banks – Muslim migrants, indigenous tea plantation workers and myriad tribes – prevented it from bagging more than four seats.
The Congress and BJP too have a token presence in the left-dominated Tripura West constituency.
Around 1.2 million people are eligible to vote to pick a Lok Sabha member from among 13 candidates, almost all of whom are first-time contenders.
This time, chief minister Manik Sarkar, BJP candidate and president of the party Sudhindra Dasgupta, state secretary of CPI(M) Bijan Dhar and trade union leader Sankar Prasad Datta, Congress’ Arunoday Saha, Trinamool Congress’ state chief Ratan Chakraborty and Aam Aadmi Party’s Salil Saha are among the aspirants.
The Left has won from West Tripura 11 times since the first Lok Sabha election of 1952 and the Congress four times.
The ruling CPI-M this time dropped both its sitting members – Khagen Das and Bajuban Reang (Tripura East), who has won the seat a record seven times since 1980. It is focusing on the development work it has done in Tripura, while attacking the Congress-led union government for poor governance, price hike and corruption.
The opposition is focusing on the Left’s ill-rule, unemployment and rising crimes against women. Polling in the tribal reserved Tripura East constituency will be held April 12.
In Assam, over 49% of voters cast their ballot in the first six hours of polling for five Lok Sabha constituencies in Assam, officials said.
The Congress, BJP, Trinamool Congress, AIUDF, AGP, AAP, SUCI, CPI(M), AIFB and SP are contesting in the five seats during the first phase of elections in the Congress-ruled state.
Among the 51 candidates are union ministers Ranee Narah and Paban Singh Ghatowar, sitting MP Bijoy Krishna Handique, Gourav Gogoi and Bhupen Kumar Bora from the Congress.
For the BJP, its unit president Sorbananda Sonowal and Kamakhya Prasad Tasa are contesting, while AGP’s nominees are Arun Kumar Sarma, Pradip Hazarika and Joseph Toppo.
For the first time in the northeast region and the third time in the country after Kashmir and Bihar, all polling booths in Assam have been declared smoking free.
