A cakewalk for Gogoi in Titabor?

By Barun Dasgupta

TITABOR (Assam), SEPT. 14. There would be no prize for guessing who would win the Assembly by-election from this constituency on September 20. Congressmen have taken it for granted that the Assam Chief Minister, Mr. Tarun Gogoi, will win hands down.

In fact, when Mr. Gogoi's younger brother, Mr. Deep Gogoi, won the seat in the Assembly elections in May, the voters of Titabor knew that there would be a by-election within months as Mr. Deep Gogoi would vacate the seat for his elder brother, who was then a member of the Lok Sabha.

Besides Mr. Tarun Gogoi, there are three contestants: Mr. Hemanta Kalita (AGP), Mr. Kula Das (CPI), and Mr. Nalinidhar Pawgam (NCP). But they all seem reconciled to the inevitable.

Tea tribes, the traditional vote bank of the Congress, account for about one-third of the electorate of 1.04 lakhs. Polling by these voters is very high - seventyfive to eighty per cent - and they vote almost exclusively for the Congress. Other Backward and More Other Backward Classes constitute 35 per cent, STs 20 per cent, SCs 15 per cent and Hindus around five per cent.

The Congress has been giving special attention to the constituency after coming to power. Titabor was declared a sub- division on August 15. The Public Health Engineering Department is about to execute a central water supply scheme.

The road linking Titabor and Jorhat, Dodar Ali, has been repaired and metalled. Built centuries ago by an Ahom King, this 200 km- road from Golaghat to Namrup is one of the oldest in Assam.

Several Congress Ministers are campaigning for Mr. Gogoi who is returning here tomorrow from Delhi.

The AGP is trying to get a respectable second position. The former Deputy Speaker, Ms. Nirupama Rajkhowa, maintains that the controversy surrounding the former Chief Minister and party chief, Mr. Prafulla Mahanta's personal life has had no adverse impact on the voters.

They have not believed these ``canards'', she says and claims that Mr. Brindaban Goswami's election as the new president has enhanced the party's image.

A cool and confident Congress says that in May, Mr. Deep Gogoi won over his AGP rival, Mr. Kalita, by a margin of about 8,300 votes. This time the margin of victory for Mr. Tarun Gogoi would be much bigger.

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