The two top contenders for the Gauhati Lok Sabha seat are women, and if one of them wins, the constituency will represented by a woman for the first time since Renuka Devi Barkakati won here in 1977.
The BJP overlooked three-time MP Bijoya Chakravarty to field Queen Oja here. Her Congress rival is Bobbeeta Sharma, who won the first Miss Northeast pageant in 1988.
“That crown was by fluke. I did not know it was a beauty contest. I had represented Assam in the Autumn Festival the Meghalaya government had organised that year,” Ms. Sharma says. “I would rather be the praja [subject] of the people, the real kings and queens in a healthy democracy.”
Ms. Oja, who became the Mayor of Guwahati for two years in 1996, has a similar view. “This Queen too wants to be the servant of the people, not a queen,” she says.
The two “queens” have a few things in common. Their political journey began in 1985 with Ms. Sharma joining the Congress and Ms. Oja joining the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) after taking part in the anti-foreigner Assam Agitation as an All Assam Students’ Union activist.
Both lost the Assembly elections in Guwahati East — Ms. Oja in 2011 as an AGP candidate and Ms. Sharma in 2016 as a Congress candidate.
Ms. Sharma, a postgraduate who taught history for some time in a Guwahati college, has better educational qualifications than Ms. Oja. The latter claimed to have cleared Class 12, but in a “corrected” affidavit said she did not.
“Let alone the Lok Sabha election, she is not qualified to contest the panchayat election if one adheres to a 2018 law brought by the Sarbananda Sonowal government that says the minimum qualification of a candidate must be Class 12 or equivalent,” former Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi says.
The BJP, though, is not worried as they feel Ms. Oja has the ability to ensure the development of the constituency.
The Congress hopes Ms. Sharma’s popularity as a film and television personality, and the changes she brought about as Chairperson of the Assam State Film Finance and Development Corporation during 2005-06 would stand her in good stead.