Three Assembly constituencies in Darrang district of Assam – Sipajhar, Mangaldai and Dalgaon will witness direct contest between the Congress and the BJP.

All the three constituencies – Sipajhar, Mangaldai and Dalgaon in Darrang district will go polls in the second phase of Assam Assembly elections.

Campaigning for the second phase of Assam Assembly elections will end at 6pm on Tuesday.

In Sipajhar, it is a direct contest between Congress candidate Kuldeep Baruah and BJP candidate Paramananda Rajbongshi.

Congress candidate Kuldeep Barua is a known face in Sipajhar constituency and has been an activist of Assam Congress since a long time.

Kuldeep Barua is banking on his personal image to reach out to the voters and ensure an electoral victory.

On the other hand, BJP candidate Paramananda Rajbongshi is relying heavily on the saffron party’s star campaigners for a win.

Political analysts in Assam have observed that though both the candidates so far have drawn large crowd in their poll rallies, Congress candidate at present has maintained a little edge over his BJP rival.

Also read: Assam Assembly elections: Holi fervour grips campaigning, leaders celebrate festival of colours with general public

In the prestigious Assembly seat of Mangaldai, a tough contest between the Assam Congress and the BJP is also on the cards.

Congress candidate Basanta Das will lock horns with BJP candidate and incumbent MLA Gurujyoti Das.

Both the candidates have put in tremendous hard work hard to reach out to the voters by holding rallies, street corner meetings, road shows, displaying cut out banners, posters, door to door campaigning, distributing leaflets and social media.

Top political leaders in Assam – both from the Congress and the BJP were seen campaigning for their respective party candidates for Mangaldoi.

Top Assam Congress leaders including APCC president Ripun Bora, Lok Sabha MP Gaurav Gogoi and BPF Chief Hagrama Mahilary campaigned for the Congress candidate from Mangaldoi.

On the other hand, top BJP leaders including Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, Union Minister Jitendra Singh, Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, MP Dilip Saikia have campaigned for Gurujyoti Das.

Also read: Assam Assembly Election 2021: Congress will win 37 seats in first phase, claims party spokesman Gourav Vallabh  

In Dalgaon seat too there is likely to be direct contest between the Assam Congress candidate and incumbent MLA Ilias Ali and Mazibur Rahman of the AIUDF in a ‘friendly contest’.

In the last two assembly polls Ilias Ali defeated AIUDF candidate Rahman by narrow margins .

In 2011 Assam Assembly elections, the victory margin was recorded as 3664 while in the 2016 Assam Assembly elections it reduced to 2320.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in the absence of AIUDF candidate the Congress candidate bagged the highest share of 1,51,490 votes.

Interestingly, the BJP candidate managed just 37,734 votes.

In the ensuing polls BJP has not fielded its own candidate and extended its support to AGP candidate Habibar Rahman.

In 2016 assembly poll Rahman bagged only 24,714 votes.

Political analysts have observed that the more vote share for the AGP candidate, the more will be the trouble for Congress candidate Ilias Ali.

Mayukh Goswami is Northeast Now Correspondent in Mangaldai. He can be reached at: [email protected]