GUWAHATI: Assam is going for assembly polls early next month along with West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Political parties are gearing up for the election, and the ruling BJP is ahead with its eye-catching campaigns led by CM Himanta Biswa Sarma. PM Modi is slated to visit Assam on March 13 and 14. The PM will inaugurate and lay foundation stones of several development projects worth several thousand crores. This will be his 4th visit to Assam in less than 3 months.
The 126-seat assembly election is slated to be held before the Rongali Bihu, as proposed by most political parties before the Election Commission. Which means the election process will be completed in less than 25 days. ‘Organiser Weekly’ brings the in-depth constituency-wise analysis of Assam for our readers.
Jalukbari Constituency
Jalukbari is one of the prime constituencies that falls under the capital city of the Guwahati region. The constituency is also significant, as it has been represented by CM Himanta Biswa Sarma for the last 25 years. For the 25 years, CM Sarma has been dominantly winning the hearts of the people of Jukbari with immense development and keeping his commitments.
The constituency was represented by Assam Agitation and AGP leader Bhrigu Kumar Phukan for three times from 1985 to 1996. He was defeated by the Congress candidate, now CM Himanta Biswa Sarma, in 2001. CM Sarma represented Jalukbari three times as a Congress candidate until 2011. He joined Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2015 and went on to win the 2016 assembly election as a BJP candidate, securing 76.63 per cent of the votes.
In the 2021 election, CM Sarma repeated his winning track and was elected to the Assam assembly as a BJP MLA, securing 77.39 per cent of the votes. The Kamrup Metropolitan district constituency has roughly 2 lakh voters, of whom almost 83 per cent are Hindu and almost 17 per cent are Muslim. The Muslim-dominated pockets of the urban constituency are traditionally Congress party vote banks. In the last two assembly elections (2016 and 2021) Congress candidates managed to secure 21 and 17 percent vote shares. But the development works carried out by CM Sarma, as the representative of the Jalukbari constituency and as the first-time CM of the state, have equally satisfied all voters of the Jalukbari constituency.
Given his popularity across all sections of society, the opposition is finding it hard to choose the right candidate to challenge CM Sarma. “ His popularity amongst all people in Jalukbari is unparalleled. He has done everything one MLA can do for his people. It is for the formality for the opposition to field a candidate against CM Sarma. He will secure unprecedented numbers of votes this time and win convincingly even if he doesn’t campaign for a single day in Jalukbari”, said Guna Das, a resident and voter of the constituency.
