The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Assam on Friday wrested the Nagaon Lok Sabha seat from the state Congress after a seven-year gap, after BJP’s Devashish Sharma defeated All India United Democratic chief Badruddin Ajmal by a margin of 142,224 votes.
Congress’s Sibamoni Bora was left in third place with 129,492 votes.
“Under the leadership of Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi , BJP has secured a decisive victory in the Nagaon Lok Sabha by-election, a seat previously held by the Congress,” Sarma wrote.
Even before the results were officially declared, state chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma took to X to celebrate the victory.
The bypoll was necessitated by sitting Congress MP Pradyut Bordoloi’s decision in March to resign from the party and join the BJP, on whose ticket he later secured an assembly election victory from the Dispur constituency. “It is clear that minority votes which used to get divided between our party and Congress all of those votes have come to our kitty this time. “The Congress failed to fulfil the aspirations of the voters. The party lacked organisational efforts and their candidate was not seen as a strong and credible one.
On the other hand, it was a revival of sorts for AIUDF and Ajmal after the 2024 debacle in Dhubri seat,” added Dutta.
Congress is finished,” said Ajmal. “It appears the Muslim community has become conformist to the incumbent regime and they have also been getting benefits of the government’s populist schemes,” said Akhil Ranjan Dutta, political science professor at Gauhati University.
