Not only does the newly formed Algapur-Katlicherra constituency in Assam’s Hailakandi has the highest number of candidates at 15 in the April 9 Assembly elections, the seat also also has another striking feature: three sitting MLAs are in the fray.
The legislators include Algapur MLA Nijam Uddin Choudhury and Katlicherra MLA Suzam Uddin Laskar contesting as Independent candidates and Hailakandi MLA Zakir Hussain fighting on the ticket of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), a BJP ally. In the 2021 polls, all of them had been elected as the AIUDF MLAs. They however “lost” their constituencies in the 2023 delimitation exercise which redrew the state’s Assembly and Lok Sabha seats.
Following the delimitation, the number of seats in Hailakandi district in the primarily Bengali-speaking Barak Valley was reduced from three to two. The Algapur and Katlicherra constituencies were merged to create a new seat with over 2.7 lakh voters, while the situation in the Hailakandi seat also changed. “All three constituencies had a mixed Muslim-Hindu population, represented by Muslim MLAs. But after the delimitation, Algapur-Katlicherra has become a huge constituency with about 80% Muslim voters, and Hailakandi has been carved in a way that a majority of voters are Hindus. So it would not have been possible for the sitting Hailakandi MLA to win from there, which is why he is contesting from Katlicherra-Algapur,” said a senior journalist from the Barak Valley.
This marks the first Assembly election in Assam after the 2023 delimitation, which has resulted in significant changes across its political map. It has led to an increase in the number of seats in the Bodoland Territorial Region from 11 to 15 while changing the contours of many seats. Several sitting MLAs have thus “lost” constituencies, which also include Amguri in Sivasagar district and Chabua in Dibrugarh district.
The delimitation’s biggest impact is likely to be on minority representation in the new Assam House. A number of parties and observers have estimated that the constituencies where the minority voters play a decisive role have reduced from around 35 of the state’s 126 seats to about 23. This squeeze is visible in the crowded contests in many “minority seats” now.
The BJP has however maintained that the exercise has “protected the interests and aspirations of Assam and its indigenous people”.
Like Algapur-Katlicherra, a battle of “heavyweights” is taking place in the new Mandia seat in Barpeta district – a sprawling constituency with a total of 2.8 lakh voters, which has been carved by merging the Baghbor and Jania seats. Consequently, the sitting MLAs of both Baghbor – former Congress leader Sherman Ali Ahmed contesting on the Trinamool Congress (TMC)’s ticket – and Jania – AIUDF leader Hafiz Rafiqul Islam – are in the fray. Also contesting from Mandia is the Congress’s Abdul Khaleque, who was the Congress MP from Barpeta but did not contest in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections after the redrawn parliamentary constituency was seen to have “neutralised” the minority voters’ key role there.
The high-octane contest has seen a flurry of high-profile election meetings in Mandia in the last few days, including by AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi for the AIUDF, Saayoni Ghosh for the TMC, and Imran Pratapgarhi for the Congress.
The neighbouring areas have also seen sitting legislators shift to other seats. For instance, the Congress MLA from Barpeta, Abdur Rahim Ahmed, has now shifted to Chenga on his party ticket as his seat has been reserved for the Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates.
Similarly, Goalpara West has been reserved for the Scheduled Tribe (ST) nominees, so the sitting Congress MLA Abdur Rashid Mandal is now contesting as a Raijor Dal candidate from Goalpara East against the incumbent Congress MLA Abul Kalam Rasheed Alam.
The shuffle of candidates has also triggered discontent among a section of the Opposition supporters in some seats since their new candidates are not viewed as “locals”.
Jaharul Islam, a resident of Chenga, said the Congress would have been an obvious choice for him. “But the current party candidate is not a local and is from Barpeta. Many of us have concerns about how approachable he will be or able to represent local concerns, making the contest a tight one,” he said.
Ahmed Tohidus Jaman, a political science research scholar at Dibrugarh University, said that besides a “crisis of representation”, there may also be a “growing scope for NDA” among minority voters. “From the point of view of minority politics, there is a great undercurrent of threat perception, with the interplay of factors like identity politics, citizenship issues, pushbacks into Bangladesh, and delimitation. With this, there is a rallying behind the NDA of some sections in minority areas. The AGP contesting in multiple minority constituencies as part of the NDA creates a middle ground to be ‘with the government’ without having to vote for the BJP,” he said.
The AGP has fielded 13 Muslim candidates among its 26 candidates, while the BJP list, which has 89 nominees, does not include a single Muslim.
These considerations are evident in Barkhetri where many residents said they were considering the BJP as an option. This was one of the constituencies where mass objections were made against the inclusion of Muslim voters in the voter list during the Election Commission (EC)’s recent Special Revision process. On this row, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma later said that he encouraged BJP workers to file such objections to “trouble Miyas (a pejorative word for Bengali-speaking Muslims)”.
“If we vote for the BJP, maybe the Chief Minister will see that we are supporting him. Maybe that will be better for us,” said Farman Ali, a 45-year-old resident of Larkuchi village in Barkhetri.
“The fact is that some people are seeing that they’re getting the government benefits despite all the speeches and statements made against the community. Since it seems very possible that there will be a BJP government again, some people are thinking maybe it’s better to be in line with the government,” said Akkash Ahmed, who runs a private school in Rampur town in Barkhetri.
He pointed to the 2025 panchayat election outcome, when the Barkhetri Char zila parishad seat, with over 90% Muslim voters, was won by the BJP. This was even highlighted along with similar results in two other Barpeta and Dhubri seats by Sarma as a sign of the BJP’s growing acceptability across the state’s minority pockets, which, he claimed, would also be reflected in the Assembly polls.
