By Avik Chakraborty

Stage set for thrilling triangular battle

Guwahati, May 2: The Barpeta Lok Sabha seat which was once a Muslim majority, has now become a Hindu majority after delimitation exercise, is going to witness a triangular fight among AGP-BJP, CPI(M) and Congress in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls.

BJP-AGP have fielded Phani Bhushan Choudhury, eight-time MLA and a veteran AGP leader against Deep Bayan of Congress and Manoranjan Talukdar, a sitting MLA of CPI(M).

The Lok Sabha constituency has 10 assembly segments, including Barpeta and Pakabetbari in Barpeta district, Bhabanipur-Sarbhog and Bajali in Bajali district, Bongaigaon and Abhayapuri in Bongaigaon district, Nalbari, Tihu, and Barkhetri in Nalbari district and Hajo-Sualkuchi in Kamrup district.

The constituency has 19,49,873 voters while Muslims account for over 7 lakh of the population, and rest are Hindus.

Since 1952 general election Congress and CPIM has wrested this seat except in 2014 when Sirajuddin Ajmal, the brother of All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) chief Badruddin Ajmal was elected to the Lok Sabha. In 2019, Abdul Khaleque from Congress won the seat with a margin of 140,307 votes against Kumar Deepak Das of AGP.

BJP and AGP have never won the Barpeta seat but this time they are putting maximum efforts to win the seat.

The demographic change” brought in through the delimitation has made BJP and AGP confident about winning Barpeta for the first time. But Barpeta Lok Sabha seat has a good chunk of Congress voters but this time the Congress vote’s will be divided.

“We are expecting a triangular fight in Barpeta Lok Sabha seat among AGP-BJP, CPI(M) and Congress but at the present moment the AGP-BJP candidate has an advantageous position. Congress have a good numbers of voters in Barpeta because out of 10 assembly seats most of the seats are under Congress but now the Congress votes will be divided. If Congress and CPI(M) will jointly contest the seat then they will get the advantage. The seat which was once a Muslim majority, has now become a Hindu majority seat after delimitation exercise,” said senior journalist of Barpeta Sahidul Islam.

This is a seat from where BJP has not been able to win even once. In the last 15 to 20 years the competition has been mostly between the Congress party and the AIUDF.

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, the fifth president of India, contested and won from Barpeta on a Congress ticket consecutively between 1967 abd 1971. He served as the President of India from 1974 to 1977.

Barpeta will go to polls in the third phase on May 7.

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