GUWAHATI: The BJP wrested the Nagaon Lok Sabha seat from the Congress on Friday, with saffron party candidate Devasish Sharma defeating his nearest rival AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal by 1,42,224 votes in the bypoll, the Election Commission said.
Sharma, a former IAS officer, polled 7,14,349 votes, while Ajmal, the Binnakandi legislator, bagged 5,72,125 votes. Former Congress MLA Sibamoni Bora finished a distant third with 1,29,492 votes, according to data available on the EC website.
The by-election was necessitated by the resignation of Pradyut Bordoloi, a two-time former Congress MP who is now the BJP MLA from Dispur. Before Bordoloi, the BJP’s Rajen Gohain had held the seat for four consecutive terms, from 1999 to 2019.
The Nagaon parliamentary constituency comprises eight Assembly segments — five in Nagaon district and three in neighbouring Morigaon district. Following the 2023 delimitation exercise, the constituency became predominantly Bengali Muslim. Muslims account for 62 per cent of its voters.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the results showed that Muslims had voted for the BJP.
“While we retained or increased our vote share in the four Assembly constituencies held by us, we also registered gains in the remaining four. We secured a chunk of the religious minority votes. This is mainly because of our development politics under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership. This victory is a tribute to his leadership and a reflection of growing public support for him,” Sarma said.
The bypoll was a litmus test for the Congress, whose popularity has been declining since the BJP emerged as a political powerhouse in 2014. The results also indicated a partial revival of the AIUDF in Bengali Muslim-majority areas. The party, which once held sway in Muslim-dominated constituencies, performed poorly in this year’s Assembly elections, winning just two of the state’s 126 seats.
The Congress had been wary of a division of Opposition votes following Ajmal’s entry into the contest. However, the combined votes secured by the Congress and AIUDF candidates appeared unlikely to exceed the BJP candidate’s tally.
Assam Congress president and Jorhat MP Gaurav Gogoi said the results reflected years of alleged political understanding between Sarma and Ajmal. He also alleged that the Election Commission of India had supported this arrangement.
“The secular Congress fell behind as two communal parties united. We want a probe into the role of the Election Commission of India. The drastic fall in the Congress’s vote share, coupled with the stellar performance of the AIUDF, which hardly had any base in the seat, has raised our suspicion,” Gogoi said.
