 "Assam assembly polls: More or less a done deal; Himanta likely to bag Jalukbari again")
The Jalukbari constituency went to the polls on April 11 in the second phase of the Assam Assembly polls.
The constituency saw the key contest between former Congress strongman, MLA Himanta Biswa Sarma, now of the BJP, and his former party’s candidate Niren Deka.
Jalukbari has a total of 1,81,215 registered voters; of which, 85.18% turned up to cast their vote.
Strengths:
The former blue-eyed boy of chief minister Tarun Gogoi, Sarma, led a rebellion against Gogoi’s leadership and in July, 2014, resigned from his post as state education minister.
The BJP found him to their liking quickly and Sarma joined the party in August, 2015. Sarma, who had been Jalkubari’s MLA from 2001 to 2015, served as the convener of the crucial election management committee of the BJP in Assam.
If the incidents surrounding his challenger Niren Deka’s October, 2015, induction rally are anything to go by, then Sarma can breathe easy.
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According to media reports, Congress had announced that Deka's entourage to a local sports complex, which was hosting his induction, would comprise “around 2,000 motorcycles and would take the route that Sarma had taken on August 28 when he returned from New Delhi on his way to change colours at the state BJP headquarters at Hengerabari”.
Instead, Deka's rally turned out to be far less than what the Congress had thought it would be. In comparison, Sarma's return to the city, subsequent to which he promptly joined the BJP, was “heralded by several thousand people and several hundred motorcycles and four-wheelers”.
According to another report, a Congress insider was quoted saying that it would be a “battle of nerves” for Deka because Sarma has been winning elections continuously for the last three times.
It was also reported earlier that Sarma had been crisscrossing the state in “whirlwind campaign mode” and had spent little time in his own constituency. The reason being that he already had a lock on his seat.
According to the same report, even after both Prime Minister Modi and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi held rallies in the state, it was Sarma’s name that came up the most.
Weakness:
Himanta's name was associated with a possible corruption charge, but nothing really came out of it.