News Analysis India

Tag: Assam elections

  • Congress lodges FIR against Sonowal, Nadda, eight Assam newspapers over BJP advertisement

    By PTI
    GUWAHATI: The Congress has filed a police complaint against Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, BJP chief J P Nadda, state president Ranjeet Kumar Dass and eight leading newspapers for “camouflaging an advertisement as news” predicting the party’s victory in all the seats in Upper Assam that went to polls in the first phase on March 27.

    The FIR was lodged with Dispur police station on Sunday night for allegedly violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), provisions of Section 126A of the Representation of People Act, 1951 and the ECI’s directives issued on March 26, APCC Legal Department Chairman Niran Borah said.

    “This is a blatant violation of MCC, Representation of People Act, 1951 and the ECI’s relevant instructions and media policies by BJP leaders and members, who after realising that their defeat is inevitable have resorted to desperate illegal and unconstitutional methods to influence the voters across the state,” he said.

    “In a pre-planned conspiracy to deceive voters in the second and third phases, CM, BJP national president, state chief and other members of the party have knowingly issued advertisements camouflaged as headlines on front pages of various newspapers claiming that the BJP will win all the constituencies of Upper Assam,” Borah said.

    The advertisements have been presented in a manner to “prejudice the mind of the voters and this deliberate, malicious and malafide set of advertisements are in clear violation of Section 126A of the Representation of People Act, 1951, which is punishable by two years of imprisonment and fine”, he said.

    Moreover, the ECI’s instructions, specific to Assam, had prohibited the dissemination of any form of prediction related to poll results between 7 am of March 27 till 7.30 pm of April 29, Borah said.

    “The publication of large-scale advertisements by the BJP falsely predicting the outcome of the current assembly election in their favour also amounts to direct violation of the instructions,” he said.

    The APCC further urged the police to take “prompt and necessary action” against those named in the complaint, including the newspapers.

    The state Congress had filed a complaint with the Assam Chief Electoral Officer Nitin Khade and the AICC with the Election Commission of India against the publication of the advertisements on Sunday urging immediate action against the BJP and the newspapers.

    An official at the CEO’s office here had said on Sunday that the matter will be examined by the ECI.

    The leading English, Assamese, Hindi and Bengali newspapers which published the advertisements include The Assam Tribune, Asomiya Pratidin, Aamar Asom, Niyomia Barta, Asomiya Khabor, Dainik Asam, Dainik Jugasankha and Dainik Purvodaya.

    An estimated 79.93 per cent of the total 81.09 lakh voters exercised their franchise in 47 assembly constituencies during the first phase of polling in Assam on Saturday.

    Elections to 39 seats will be held in the second phase on April 1 and 40 in the third and final phase on April 6.

  • Assam polls and migrants: Managing competing identities in government documents

    Express News Service
    GUWAHATI/GOALPARA/KOKRAJHAR: Shyamal Biswas, not his real name, walks briskly into his sparse, customer-less hotel in Bonda Colony, Kamrup district, to engage in an animated discussion with his wife and petite daughter.

    Moments later he comes out with a cup of tea and rather proudly declares that he had just got his first shot of the Covid-19 vaccine. His free vaccination was not without hiccup, though.

    “The girl there said my name is not in the list but when I told her that I have been sent by a Bharatiya Janata Party leader, she checked and gave me the shot,” the loquacious Biswas said.

    “You see, my age is different in all my documents,” he said, fishing out his election identity card from his shirt pocket where he is aged 46 and his PAN card where he is 66.

    “The teachers who carried out the survey for these documents goofed up, they are useless,” he declared.

    Bonda Colony, a town of a few hundred households just outside Guwahati, is inhabited mainly by Bengali Hindus, like Biswas.

    Locals said they are mainly settlers from Bangladesh who have over the years acquired documents that give them the right to claim they belong here.

    These documents are often got through illegal means, which perhaps explains the wide discrepancy in Biswas’s age. The Bengali Hindus mostly support the BJP.

    In return, the party gives them government benefits, like the vaccination shot Biswas got which he was perhaps not entitled to yet.

    “Why shouldn’t the Hindus be given citizenship in India, where else will they go,” he said of the Citizenship Amendment Act as the conversation traversed from small talk to politically-loaded, highly emotive issues, inviting surreptitious glances from a motor mechanic next door.

    About 100 kms away in Dhanubanga near Dudhnoi towards Bangladesh, shop owner Sundar Kumar Rabha has different political priorities.

    Belonging to the Rabha tribe, an Indo-Tibetan community who are among the first settlers of Assam and hence considered as indigenous people, Sundar said the Rabha Autonomous Council should be included in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. 

    Assam politics revolves around ethnicities, nationalism

    T he autonomous council was formed in 1995 to meet the political aspirations of the Rabhas, who are estimated to number six lakh.

    But dissatisfied with its functioning, the community formed the Rabha Hasong Joint Movement Committee to spearhead the Sixth Schedule demand.

    Lending it support is the All-Rabha Students’ Union. T heir effort paid off partially in May 2020 when the Assam cabinet decided to include the council in the Sixth Schedule.

    It now awaits Central action as Parliament has to pass a bill to give it effect.

    “The Assam government has not yet sent the proposal to Delhi,” said AR SU president Nripen Khanda in Dudhnoi, Goalpara district.

    “We are supporting the BJP in this hope,” Khanda added.

    Biswas’s citizenship hopes for his community and Khanda’s aspirations for his people capture the competing and often conflicting demands in Assam’s complex political canvas.

    Most, if not all, of these demands are identity-based, each with their own brand of ethnic, linguistic, cultural, tribal and religious political aggregation.

    Assam’s politics, in fact, revolves around managing and accommodating these opposing ethnicities and nationalisms.

    “It’s all about managing these diversities,” said Lawrence Islary, a candidate in Kokrajhar from the United People’s Party Liberal, the BJP’ Bodo ally. “The Congress did not do anything for the Bodos, they could not even implement the Bodo Accord of 2003 properly because of which a new one had to be signed last year,” Islary said.

    The BJP has so far deftly steered its way around this community and ethnically-strewn political road, meeting some demands while not pandering to all.

    For instance, the tea workers, who came largely from Jharkhand, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh decades back and who have a decisive say in 40 of the 126 constituencies in Assam.

    Although it has failed to keep its 2016 election promise of raising the daily wage of workers from around Rs 100 during the Congress government to Rs 315, the Sarabanda Sonowal government has developed roads inside tea gardens, built schools and is giving free education up to post graduation in government-run institutions.

    The Rabhas have been promised the Sixth Schedule while the Koch-Rajbongshis, Motoks and Morans, three communities who have been agitating for Scheduled Tribe status, have been given autonomous councils to blunt their movement.

    The BJP also dumped the discredited Bodo People’s Front, its Bodo ally in 2016, and tied up with the UPPL.

    The BPF, particularly its leader Hagrama Mohiliary, has been accused of massive corruption and is getting increasingly unpopular.

    But there is also a section which believes the BJP is trying to subsume linguistic, cultural and ethnic sub-nationalisms with Hindu nationalism.

    “They have already polarised the population of Assam in the name of religion,” said Lurinjyoti Gogoi, a former All-Assam Students’ Union general secretary who has formed a new party, the Asom Jatiya Parishad, and is contesting the elections.

    “The BJP is losing hold over the Assamese Hindus and that is why they are playing the Hindu card. But this will not succeed,” said Satyakam Borthakur of Dibrugarh University.

    COMPETING IDENTITIES

    ST status demand

    Tai-Ahom, Moran, Motok, Chutia, tea tribes and Koch-Rajbongshis have been demanding Scheduled Tribe status.

    The Centre had approved the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2019, and introduced a Bill in the Rajya Sabha on January 9, 2019 but it a hit roadblock as the existing STs opposed it

    Statehood demand

    The Autonomous State Demand Committee is spearheading a statehood movement for the Karbis in Karbi Anglong region.

    Similarly, the Dimasa tribes want a ‘Dimaland’ by carving out parts of Assam and Nagaland

  • Assam polls a struggle to save people from BJP’s misrule: Congress leader Sachin Pilot

    By PTI
    SILCHAR/KARIMGANJ: Congress leader Sachin Pilot on Sunday claimed that the assembly election in Assam is a struggle to save the people of the state from the “misrule” of the BJP.

    The BJP government never stood by the people during the hour of crisis, Pilot alleged while addressing two election meetings at Silchar and Karimganj in Barak Valley region.

    “We are not fighting to come to power, but to save the people of Assam from the misrule of the BJP,” he said.

    The BJP is dividing people on religious lines and they need to remain united in Assam and India, the former deputy chief minister of Rajasthan said.

    “When people were in crisis during the demonetisation, GST and lockdown, the BJP government was nowhere to be seen. So, it is time that we remove the party from power,” he added.

    The Congress will form the next government in Assam, Pilot asserted.

    “In five years, the BJP gave CAA, NRC, autocracy, inflation and communalism, but not jobs. The biggest challenge today in front of the country and Assam is unemployment. The Congress has guaranteed that it will give five lakh government jobs (in five years),” he said.

    The Congress, once voted to power, will also implement 50 per cent reservation for women in all government jobs, Pilot said.

    In an apparent reference to rumours of Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and senior minister Himanta Biswa Sarma acting as rival power centres in the outgoing government, he said, “In Assam, nobody knows who is the CM.

    Is he the person who took the oath or the one who wants to be the CM?” The BJP has not announced its chief ministerial candidate before the polls and said that a decision in this regard will be taken by its Parliamentary Board at the time of forming the next government.

    Pilot along with All India Mahila Congress president Sushmita Dev also led a procession in Karimganj town in support of Congress candidates.

  • Assam assembly elections: Congress lodges complaint with EC over BJP’s ‘deceptive’ ad

    By Express News Service
    GUWAHATI: The Congress has lodged a complaint with the Election Commission demanding action after a BJP advertisement in several local dailies allegedly suggested the party’s victory in all seats of Upper Assam, which voted in the first phase of assembly polls on Saturday.

    Assam Congress alleged that BJP carried a misleading advertisement in multiple dailies, suggesting its victory in these constituencies.

    “… The advertisement has been published in the form of a news report for canvassing in favour of BJP to influence and deceive the public/voters for the remaining two phases of polls across the state,” Niran Borah, who is the chairman of the Congress’ legal department, wrote to Assam chief electoral officer Nitin Khade.

    ALSO READ | Congress urges EC to register FIRs against JP Nadda, Sarbananda Sonowal for ads predicting outcome of Assam polls

    Congress has demanded strict action against the BJP, as well as the newspapers in question, for publishing the ad, in a news format, which is in violation of the model code of conduct, and requested for assurance that the remaining two phases of elections are conducted in a free and fair manner.

    “Further, till the conclusion of polling of present election, the circulation of the said news items/advertisement is to be stopped for publication in all forms of electronic media, social media, etc. for the holding of the present election in a fair and impartial manner,” the complaint further read.

    The stakes appeared high for ruling BJP and its ally Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) in the first phase of polling.

    In the 2016 elections, 35 of the 47 seats, which went to polls in the first phase, were bagged by the BJP (27) and AGP (8).

    The Congress had won nine, All India United Democratic Front – two and there was an independent victor.

  • Congress urges EC to register FIRs against JP Nadda, Sarbananda Sonowal for ads predicting outcome of Assam polls

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: With the BJP advertising claims of winning all seats in upper Assam, the Congress on Sunday said it is in violation of the Representation of the People Act and urged the Election Commission to register FIRs against BJP chief JP Nadda and Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal.

    In a complaint to the Election Commission (EC), Congress leaders Randeep Surjewala, Ajay Maken and Mukul Wasnik sought directions and action against top BJP leaders for giving advertisements in newspapers claiming victory in all upper Assam seats.

    They said such advertisements are in clear violation of the directions given by the EC that no one can make predictions of the results during the prohibited period.

    “We pray to the EC to take all such actions as may be necessary and required in law, including direction for registration of offences against Sarbananda Sonowal, J P Nadda and Ranjit Kumar Dass for the blatant violation of Model Code of Conduct and the RP Act, 1951,” the Congress stated.

    The party also demanded action against the media publishing such advertisements.

    Assam goes to polls in three phases and the first phase of polling was held on March 27.

    “The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), after realising that their defeat is inevitable, has resorted to desperate illegal and unconstitutional methods to influence voters across the state,” the Congress said in a memorandum to the poll body.

    The Congress leaders alleged that in a “pre-planned conspiracy” and in order to “defraud the voters of Assam”, Sonowal, Nadda, Assam BJP president Ranjeet Kumar Dass and other BJP members and functionaries “willfully and knowingly have today issued advertisements camouflaged as political predictions as headlines on front page, in various newspapers throughout Assam”.

    They said through such ads, the BJP leaders have disseminated “false/untrue outcome of the results” of the first phase of voting in Assam and have “falsely claimed that BJP will win all constituencies of upper Assam”.

    Surjewala told reporters that the advertisements have been presented in a manner on the front page of every newspaper “to prejudice the minds of the voters of Assam”.

    “The advertisements have been presented in a manner so as to look like a ‘newspaper headline’. This deliberate, malicious and malafide set of advertisements are in clear violation of Section 126A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which is punishable up to two years of imprisonment and fine,” he said.

    “These desperate acts of the BJP have been carried out with malice to soil the fairness of the electoral process, to save their sinking ship and gain undue advantage in the Assembly elections of Assam. It should be dealt with by the ECI with the strongest possible action under law,” he added.

    The Congress leader asserted that the poll body is mandated to safeguard the voters’ democratic and fundamental right to vote freely and without undue influence.

    “We request the Election Commission to exercise its power under Article 324 of the Constitution of India to preserve the doctrine of free and fair elections and register FIRs against the persons mentioned. We also urge the Commission to direct all news publication and channels to desist from abetting the crime being committed by BJP leaders as also to adhere to and follow the EC instructions of March 26,” he said.

  • 2021 Assembly polls Phase-I: Stray incidents of violence reported in West Bengal

    By Express News Service
    KOLKATA/GUWAHATI: Amid stray incidents of violence and trading of barbs over electoral malpractices, nearly 80 per cent polling was reported in the 30 constituencies of West Bengal that voted in the first phase of the eight-phase assembly election on Saturday.

    In Assam 72.14 per cent turnout was recorded for 47 of the total 126 seats that went to polls.

    The voting percentage in Bengal is around 3 per cent less than the previous assembly elections. The 30 constituencies that went to polls on Saturday included all the 18 constituencies that had voted in the first phase in 2016, too.

    The rising cases of COVID-19 and absence of a large number of migrant workers, who had left the state following the lockdown, are believed to be the reason behind the slight drop in turnout.

    Polling was held under tight security blanket with 730 companies of central forces guarding 10,288 polling booths in Junglemahal’s Purulia, Jhargram, West Midnapore and Bankura districts. However, violence was reported from pockets in Midnapore.

    Two police officers were injured in Bhagawanpur in East Midnapore when goons hurled crude bombs. Attack on political rivals also took place in West and East Midnapore districts. CPM candidate in Junglemahal’s Shalboni, Sushanta Ghosh, was manhandled when he was visiting a polling booth.

    He was pushed, allegedly by the Trinamool Congress supporters and his vehicle was vandalised. Soumendu Adhikari, brother of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s challenger in Nandigram constituency Suvendu Adhikari, was attacked, booth allegedly by TMC supporters, when he was on his way to a polling in Contai South constituency.

    Windshields of his vehicle were smashed. Three persons were arrested in connection with the attack. “I came to know the TMC supporters were casting bogus votes at a booth and was heading there. A group of TMC men waylaid me and attacked my car,” alleged Soumendu, who joined the BJP recently.

    The TMC, however, denied the allegation and said the incident was a fall out of common people’s anger as Soumendu was roaming with outsiders. In Assam, the polling was largely peaceful.

    Unlike the three-phase elections this time, the 2016 polls were held in two phases with 65 constituencies voting in the first phase, which had recorded 82.41 per cent turnout. An election official died as his health deteriorated at a polling station in Sonari.

  • ‘BJP only works for big people’: Tejashwi attacks saffron party at Assam rallies

    By PTI
    RATABARI/DHOLAI: Terming BJP as “Badka Jhoota Party” (Biggest Lying Party), RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav on Saturday said the problem of unemployment will end once the betrayers will be dethroned.

    Addressing two back-to-back rallies at Ratabari and Dholai in Barak valley of Assam, the Leader of Opposition in Bihar Assembly said the situation of inflation was not so severe during the tenure of the Congress.

    “BJP means Badka Jhoota Party. You need to be careful of them. The BJP does not talk about ‘mudda’ (issues) but talks about ‘murda’ (dead). And what are the main issues? Our democracy and Constitution is at stake. We need to save that,” he said.

    Alleging that the BJP works only for the “big people”, Yadav claimed every big organisation like the railways having scope to generate jobs are being sold off.

    “Job is the biggest problem. Large number of youths are unemployed. Unemployment is the biggest enemy. How will it be cured then? It will be cured when we will remove the cheater and betrayer from the chair.

    “So, will there be ‘khela hobe’ or not? If there is ‘khela hobe’, then unemployment will end. Five lakh jobs will be given as guarantees. And for that, all of you should be united while voting,” he added.

    The RJD leader asserted that inflation was not so high during the Congress regime and prices of petrol, diesel and cooking gas were not so high.

    “How will you run your house at such high inflation? I want to thank Rahul Gandhi and all the ‘Mahajot’ (Grand Alliance) partners because of the guarantee of giving Rs 2,000 per month to every housewife,” he said.

    The Congress, which was in power for 15 years in Assam since 2001, has formed a ‘Grand Alliance’ with AIUDF, BPF, CPI, CPI(M), CPI(ML), Anchalik Gana Morcha (AGM), RJD and Jimochayan (Deori) Peoples Party (JPP) to fight the Assembly election against the BJP-led NDA.

    Yadav was in Assam to campaign for Congress candidates Sambhu Singh Mallah (Ratabari), Kamakhya Prasad Mala (Dholai), Mukesh Pandey (Lakhipur) and Sashi Kanta Das (Raha).

  • Kanhaiya calls Modi ‘biggest liar’, compares Himanta to Kansa of Mahabharata

    By PTI
    MORIGAON: CPI leader Kanhaiya Kumar hit out at BJP on Saturday calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi “the biggest liar” and comparing the saffron party’s top Assam leader Himanta Biswa Sarma with King Kansa, the tyrant ruler of Mathura in the Mahabharata.

    The former JNU students union president termed Modi’s statement in Bangladesh, where he is on a visit, about going to jail for that country’s freedom as a “big lie”.

    He urged the people of Assam, where the three-phase poll for the state assembly began on Saturday, not to support those who are selling the resources of the country in the name of nationalism.

    Launching a scathing attack on Modi, the Left youth leader questioned whether annually two crore jobs have been created or black money has returned to the country as was promised by him in 2014.

    “What has happened in five years? How are the same people seeking votes again? When I came here someone said that I can be a challenge to Modi.

    I said that to challenge Modi one has to be the biggest liar of the world”.

    Referring to Modi’s comment in Dhaka, Kumar said, “Have you heard what has he (Modi) said in Bangladesh? He said he had also contributed in Bangladesh’s freedom struggle, that he had participated in satyagraha and went to jail. Only BJP leaders can create such level of lies,” Kumar said.

    In the Bangladesh war, India supported the freedom movement in that country and Pakistan opposed it.

    “So a question arises that where was Modi on his satyagraha ? “Was he put behind the bars by the Pakistan government or the Indian government? It is nothing but a big lie,” Kumar said while campaigning for CPI candidate Munin Mahanta.

    Modi had said in Dhaka on Friday that he was part of a satyagraha held to back the liberation of Bangladesh.

    It had led to political slugfest back home.

    He was speaking at the national parade square in the Bangladesh capital to mark the celebrations of the golden jubilee of its Independence and the birth centenary of the father of the nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

    Training his guns at Sarma, he said “There is one leader who calls himself Mama (maternal uncle). Kansa was also a mama (of Lord Krishna). You can see the political truth. I just want to know how many promises which were made five years ago have been fulfilled (in the state)”.

    Sarma, who is also the Assam health minister, is fondly called ‘Mama’ mostly by youths for his handling of the COVID-19 situation in the state in 2020.

    During the campaign phase, he is widely being addressed as ‘Mama’.

    “The man who could not be Mama of Congress party, how can he be a Mama of Assam? There is not a bigger traitor than the one who cheats people for his own interests,” Kumar said.

    Sarma was a minister in the Congress government of Tarun Gogoi in the state till he quit the party and joined BJP.

    Criticising BJP, the CPI leader said “Traitors have occupied Delhi. We have to defeat them and make our farmers who are protesting on the borders of Delhi (against farm laws) for months victorious,” Kumar said.

    The ongoing state election is not being held to chose any leader but the government which will work for the people, he said.

    “Gandhi took bullets in his chest for the ballot. This is the power of ballot – don’t misuse it. You have to decide whether you are with the force which is selling the resources of the country in the name of nationalism.”

    “Let love win this election, not hatred. Gandhi was a man of love,” he said.

    Alleging that the BJP government is deeply involved in syndicates of coal, fish and other items, the former student leader said the saffron party only makes false promises every five years.

    “This party cannot do good for Assam. Modi is selling the country to his Gujarati friends. You have to understand the conspiracy of these people. They want to build a syndicate by creating fights among the people in Assam.”

    “They are enacting dramas in Assam. They say that if the Mahajot (Congress-AIUDF alliance) wins, then the social fabric of Assam will change. They don’t know the history of Assam. They should know that this land belongs to Srimanta Sankardeva and Aajaan Fakir,” he added.

  • Cast vote against divisive forces to strengthen democracy, Rahul Gandhi tells people of Assam, WB

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi urged voters on Saturday to cast their ballots against “divisive forces” to strengthen democracy as polling began for the first phase of the Assembly elections in West Bengal and Assam.

    Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who has been campaigning for the Assam polls, urged people to vote for progress and the golden future of the state.

    CLICK HERE FOR ASSAM, WEST BENGAL POLL UPDATES 

    In a Facebook post in Hindi, she urged the people of Assam, especially youngsters and women, to vote in large numbers.

    “Do cast your ballot against divisive forces to strengthen democracy,” Rahul Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi.

    The Congress is contesting the West Bengal polls in a coalition with the Left parties and the Indian Secular Front (ISF).

    Elections to the 294-member state Assembly are to be held in eight phases starting Saturday, with the final round of voting scheduled to take place on April 29.

    The Congress-led “Mahajot” alliance is seeking to wrest power from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Assam, which is voting in three phases starting Saturday.

    The counting of votes for both states as well as for the Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry Assembly polls will be taken up on May 2.

  • Vote for progress, golden future of Assam: Priyanka Gandhi 

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: As polling began for the first phase of assembly elections in Assam, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday urged the people to vote for progress and golden future of the state.

    The Congress-led ‘Mahajot’ alliance is seeking to wrest power from the BJP in Assam which is voting in three phases starting on Saturday.

    The counting of votes will be on May 2.

    CLICK HERE FOR ASSAM, WEST BENGAL POLL UPDATES 

    “Today, the first phase of polling is being held in Assam. I appeal to the people of Assam, especially the youth and my sisters, to go to the polling booths today and vote in large numbers,” Priyanka Gandhi said in a Facebook post in Hindi.

    “Vote for progress and golden future of Assam,” said the Congress general secretary, who has campaigned in the state.