Assam polls 2016: BJP’s chances depend on split in the Muslim vote, Assam opinion exit poll, United Minorities Front of Assam, Assom Gana Parishad, UMFA, Tarun Gogoi, Narendra Modi
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- Category: Assam Political News
- Last Updated: Wednesday, 13 April 2016 15:08
Assam polls 2016: BJP’s chances depend on split in the Muslim vote,Assam opinion exit poll, United Minorities Front of Assam, Assom Gana Parishad, UMFA, Tarun Gogoi, Narendra Modi
Elections in Assam had never been as exciting as it was this time. While it was one of the most peaceful elections in the state in the past three decades or more, old-timers compare it with the 1985 elections, the one that was held within four months of the Assam Accord, one that also saw the newly-formed Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) capture power within just two months of its birth.
Looking back, one finds several very close similarities between the 1985 assembly election and the just-concluded one. First and foremost, both were by and large fought on the same issue – of Bangladeshi infiltration.
Secondly, the voters were sharply divided on both occasions, one side out and out against the infiltrators and their alleged protection, the other side – Congress and the break-away United Minorities Front of Assam (UMFA) splitting the Congress vote-base vertically into two equal parts.
The third most significant aspect common to both was the heavy turn-out of voters; in 1985, the voter turn-out was 79.21 per cent, this time it worked out to 84.72 per cent.But then there was one very significant difference between 1985 (and for that matter all previous elections) and 2016; this was the first time that a huge campaign was launched to polarize the voters on religious or communal lines. Muslims of migrant origin did move away from the Congress out of fear of the AGP in 1985, but then that time Bengali Hindus of migrant origin too were with them in the UMFA. In 2006, after Badruddin Ajmal floated the United Democratic Front (later AIUDF), it were only the Muslims who shifted towards him. Majority of the Bengali Hindus had by then got closer to the slowly rising BJP.
The BJP also tried to pick up two things from the Congress in the just-concluded election. One, it got Tarun Gogoi’s once most-trusted lieutenant Himanta Biswa Sarma into the party (Sarma is said to be the main architect of three successive Congress victories since 2001), and two – it borrowed from Gogoi his famous “Who is Badruddin?” question of 2006 that had helped the Congress get maximum Assamese votes in two successive elections.