BeyondHeadlines Special Correspondent
Guwahati: On the first phase of the polls on April 4, at least 362 candidates, of whom many will be heavyweights from both the ruling Congress party and opposition parties, would try their luck to make it to the 13th Assam State Legislative Assembly.
Among the 363 candidates, 26 are females and rest are males. Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi, along with his other cabinet member like, Gautam Roy, Nurzamal Sarkar, Ajanta Neog, Bharat Chandra Narah, Prithivi Majhi, Pradyut Bordoloi, will try their luck on April 4.
Gogoi is contesting from his home turf – Titabar constituency, in Upper Assam, for a third time in a row. Roy, Sarkar, Neog, Narah, Majhi and Bordoloi too are contesting from their home turfs – Katlichera, Biswanath, Golaghat, Dhakuakhana, Lahowal and Margherita – respectively.
Heavyweights from Assam’s main opposition party, Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), who would fight it out in the first phase of the polls are – Brindabon Goswami from Tezpur, Padma Hazarika from Sootea, Atul Bora from Bokakhat and Apurba Kumar Bhattacharjee from Dhekiajuli.
BJP’s state president, Ranjit Dutta, too would try his luck on April 4 from Bihali constituency.
The main accused in the North Cachar Hills multi-crore scam, Mohet Hojai, too wishes to transform from a law breaker to a law-maker in this elections as he is contesting the April 4 polls from Haflong constituency. However, he does not have the privilege to go out and campaign as he is presently lodged in jail in connection with the scam.
Altogether, 8,50,9011 voters would decide the fate of 62 candidates, out of 362, on April 4 in Assam. Out of 8,50,9011 voters, 43,91,895 are male and 41,17,116 are female.
Out of the total contesting candidates in the first phase, 11 per cent have criminal cases pending among them, with All India Trinamool Congress party leading the table with 22 per cent of its candidates having pending criminal cases. The Congress party has 3 candidates who have criminal cases pending against them, which amounts to 5 per cent of total number of candidates.
