Hyderabad: Election fever has gripped the North-Eastern state of Assam with voters from 47 constituencies in exercise their franchise in the first phase on March 27.
The current government led by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal is the first Bharatiya Janata Party regime in Assam since Independence and it is leaving no stone unturned to retain the regime.
As many as 264 candidates from more than 10 political parties have filed their nominations for 47 Assembly Constituencies in the first phase. However, the Assam Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) have analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 259 out of 264 candidates. The data of 5 candidates have not been analyzed as their affidavits were either badly scanned or complete affidavits were not uploaded on the ECI website.
The number of polling stations has been increased from 24,890 in 2016 to 33,530 in 2021. The percentage increase in polling stations is at 35.71 per cent. The term of the current government in Assam will expire on May 31.
Out of 259 candidates, 97 (37%) candidates have declared their educational qualifications to be between 5th and 12th standard while 157 (61%) candidates have declared having an educational qualification of graduate or above. Four candidates are Diploma holders and one candidate is just literate.