Guwahati (Assam): In the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, five constituencies got underway to cast their ballots in its first phase on April 19, in which two ethnic groups played a decisive role. The two ethnic groups, Tea Garden workers and Ahom communities, will have a major influence on the outcome in Assam this time, just like in the previous elections.
Dr Dayanand Buragohain, a prominent educationist and senior political rights activist in Ahom communities, said that this time there were two significant constituencies, Jorhat and Dibrugarh, and he believes that the reason for the turnout of about 80% in Jorhat constituency out of the five seats is the high turnout of the younger generation and the massive turnout of Ahom voters.
According to ethnic organizations and social activists, there are about 6 million tea workers and more than 5 million voters in the Ahom community. In particular, the Jorhat constituency is dominated by the Ahom voters, and the Dibrugarh seat has the tea ethnic voters, Dr. Borgohain added.
He also explained that after the Ahoms, only Jorhat has around 3,00,000 tea garden worker votes. The Congress has won the hearts of the majority of Ahom voters. Tapan Gogoi was the BJP candidate for the last 5 years, but people were not happy with him. Therefore, the BJP is dependent on the tea garden voters and other voters like Nepalis, etc. in Jorhat this time, Borgohain included.
Gaurav Gogoi, the deputy leader of the parliament from INC, and present MP Tapan Kumar Gogoi from the BJP. There are a total of 35 tea gardens in Jorhat district and around 7.4 lakh tea garden worker community voters in the Dibrugarh constituency. The Ahom voters are the second-largest voters in Dibrugarh, and there are more than 4,00,000 Ahom voters in the place. Lurinjyoti Gogoi is an Ahom; therefore, he will get the majority of Ahom votes.
But the BJP candidate, Sarbananda Sonowal, is a powerful candidate who is also the former Chief Minister of Assam and Union Minister. On the other hand, there are about 55 tea gardens and about 6.60 lakh tea garden voters in the Sonitpur constituency (formerly Tezpur).
There are about 1,47,000 voters in the Rangapara constituency alone out of the five constituencies in Sonitpur district. The Congress candidate, Premlal Ganju, is from the tea community in the district. But the BJP has been dominating the Tea Gardens voters in the constituency since the 2014 election, and the party is currently in control of all the constituencies in that constituency. Therefore, it cannot be speculated that the Congress candidate can make a difference to the BJP vote bank among the tea garden workers.
There are 803 tea gardens in Assam, according to official data from the state government. Of these, 200 are included in the major tea estates, and the remaining 600 are in the general category. There are more than 5,000 small tea gardens in Assam, and there are about 1 million tea workers in these gardens. Of these, 400,000 are female workers, and Assam tea gardens produce 52% of the annual tea production across India.
