BJP graph up as rebels keep AGP, Cong down

There are seven other contestants in the race, including one nominee each from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Samajwadi Party, and five Independents.

Kalita, a senior Congress leader who was once close to Rajiv Gandhi, won the seat last time. However, he is struggling nowagainst the seat’s reputation of never returning an incumbent and the prospect of division of Congress votes with the NCP candidate in the picture.

Guwahati has around 40,000 Garo tribal votes. NCP leader P.A. Sangma is a member of the community and by all accounts, very popular. Sangma is confident that despite his decision to split from the Congress, his community will still vote for him and the NCP’s Guwahati candidate, Suniti Sonowal.

Chakravarty, for her part, is banking on what she calls “the BJP wave”. Originally a member of the AGP and the Rajya Sabha from 1985 to 1991, she joined the BJP in 1993. “Whenever and wherever I go to the people to ask for votes,” she says, “the people tell me, You need not worry, we know your symbol’.”

Chakravarty’s daughter Suman, a TV filmmaker and astrologer, accompanies her during campaigning. According to her, “Guwahati is the gateway to the North-east, and the people (here) badly need a minister at the Centre. And my mother is going to be one.” AGuwahati MP has not been in the Union Cabinet since V.P. Singh’s time, when Dinesh Goswami of the AGP had been a minister. Prior to that, Renuka Devi Borkotoki was a minister of state in the Morarji Desai government.

One advantage that both Kalita and Chakravarty have in the race is that the AGP is carrying the baggage of its government in the state. The BJP and Congress have been telling the people that during the AGP reign in the state as well as the city municipal corporation, the historic Guwahati has become Garbage-hati (Hati means “a big village” in old Assamese).

However, more than these charges, AGP candidate Boro’s problems are proving to be two former party leaders — ex-home minister Bhrigu Kumar Phukan and ex-public works minister Atul Bora. Both represent vital Assembly segments in the Guwahati Lok Sabha constituency: Phukan is the MLA from Jalukbari and Bora from Dispur. Once founder general secretaries of the AGP, they were put under suspension several months ago and are now campaigningagainst Boro as well as gunning for Mahanta.

While they are not appealing for votes for either the BJP or the Congress, Phukan and Bora are urging people to vote against the AGP as “it has lost its right to represent the people”.

Mahanta’s party also lacks star campaigners besides him. Last Sunday, for example, the Congress got a big boost when Sonia Gandhi addressed a well-attended rally here. The BJP is getting its top Central leaders this week. Gone are the days of the ’80s when Telugu Desam Party chief N.T. Rama Rao came for an AGP rally and attracted a bigger crowd than for a meeting being addressed by Rajiv Gandhi the same day in the same town.

But Boro remains optimistic. “The people of Guwahati lead the people of the state. They are shrewd. They understand what both the Congress and BJP have done to India,” he says, adding that the anti-AGP campaign by Phukan and Bora has not made much of an impact.

One reason he is still hopeful is that Guwahati never elects the same candidate twice in arow. In 1985, the AGP’s Dinesh Goswami won from here, but in 1991, it was the turn of the Congress’s Kirip Chaliha to emerge victorious. If the AGP’s Prabin Sharma wrested the seat in 1996, Kalita of the Congress won in 1998.

However, there is one set of figures which the AGP is not talking about. The party polled 60.93 per cent votes in 1985 but got as low as 16.75 in 1991. Though its share went up to 44.3 per cent in 1996, it slid down again, to 21.43 per cent last year. Compared to this, the BJP’s vote percentage has been improving rapidly, from 7.55 in 1991 to 19.42 in 1996 and 27.31 in 1998.