Silchar set to witness straight contest between Cong and BJP

Silchar: In the absence of an AIUDF candidate, the Silchar Lok Sabha constituency is set to witness a straight fight between Congress and BJP. Altogether 13 candidates, including sitting MP Sushmita Dev of Congress and Rajdeep Roy of BJP, are in the fray for the Silchar seat that will go to the polls on April 18.
AIUDF, which hasn’t fielded any candidate from the seat this time, has called upon Muslims to go for ‘conscience votes’. ‘We don’t want to split anti-BJP votes anywhere in the country and Assam in particular. AIUDF is all out to stop BJP from winning,” said party chief Badruddin Ajmal. This time, AIUDF is contesting only in three seats — Karimganj, Dhubri and Barpeta.

History says whenever there’s not a strong Muslim candidate in Silchar, it is advantage Congress. Muslim voters, who constitute 34.5% of 12 lakh voters in this Bengali-dominated southern Assam constituency, are known as a Congress vote bank. In 2009, Ajmal had secured more than 2 lakh votes in the Silchar Lok Sabha segment, ensuring defeat of Congress strongman Santosh Mohan Dev. In 2004 and 2014, there was no strong minority candidate to garner support of Muslim voters. This helped Congress to sail through in this constituency.

“I don’t deny the fact that Modi has done a lot for the country in areas of road and railway connectivity, health and infrastructure development. However, he is anti-minority,” said a lawyer belonging to minority community here.

On the other hand, the Modi wave is still very much visible among Hindus despite allegations of harassment in the name of NRC update and BJP government’s failure to pass the Citizenship (Amandment) Bill 2016 in Parliament. “We are hopeful that the Hindu refugees will be given some security if BJP comes back to power again,” said a trader.