Friday, April 10, 2009

Dibrugarh Lok Sabha Election, Ten candidates in fray in Dibrugarh

Assam Lok Sabha Election

DIBRUGARH, April 9: Ten candidates will contest for the Dibrugarh Lok Sabha seat after Ram Narayan Singh of Shiv Sena withdrew his nomination paper and the returning officer rejected Nikhil Kumar Sen’s nomination. They are Paban Singh Ghatowar of Congress, Sarbananda Sonowal of AGP, Ramen Chandra Borthakur of NCP, Ratul Gogoi of CPI, Gangaram Kaul of CPI (ML), Niharika Borpatragohain of JMM, Francis Dhan of NPP and three independents, Lakhicharan Sawasi, Imtiaz Hussain and Seema Ghosh.

However, analysts here say that the contest would be mainly between the Congress and the AGP candidates. The presence of three other candidates from the tea tribes, Dhan, Kaul and Sawasi, is hardly being seen as a challenge to Ghatowar.

The 3,80,000 votes of the tea community play a major role in deciding the fate of a candidate. In the last Lok Sabha elections, Kamakhya Prasad Tassa of BJP eroded the vote bank of Ghatowar and helped Sonowal defeat the four-time winner of the Dibrugarh Lok Sabha seat.

However, a repeat of the past is unlikely, as Dhan, Kaul and Sawasi have limited appeal among the tea tribes. The very fact that the Congress candidate is the ACMS president gives him a wider presence in the tea estates and an edge in this election. Ghatowar went out of his way to strengthen his base among his community after last time’s defeat. But, NCP’s candidate could be a factor in the division of the tea tribes’ votes.

Borthakur is the president of Tea Workers’ Union and has promised to do the work that Ghatowar failed to effect.

Sonowal can look forward to the fact that the BJP loyalists are sure to vote for him. As Rameswar Teli of BJP pointed out in a recent press meet, if one went by last election’s figures and combined the votes won by Sonowal and Tassa, following the alliance of the two parties, the AGP candidate could emerge the winner. source: THE SENTINEL

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