Kamal Ghorui
Dibrugarh: Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) president Lurinjyoti Gogoi took his campaign to the tea gardens of Khowang in Dibrugarh district on Wednesday, canvassing among tea garden workers and making a strong pitch for their votes in the newly formed Khowang assembly constituency. In a significant show of support, around 350 people from the tea community joined the AJP at a joining event held at the Sepon Tea Estate, where Gogoi welcomed the new members personally.“The tea garden workers have been deprived of their rights and neglected for far too long. From wages to working conditions they have been neglected. I am here to assure them that if elected, their welfare will be my top priority. Their struggles will find a voice in the assembly. Khowang deserves a representative who understands the ethos of this land and its people,” said Gogoi, addressing the gathering at the tea estate.The outreach to the tea community is politically significant. Tea garden voters constitute approximately 46,000 — or around 29.5% — of Khowang’s total electorate of 1,57,363 voters, making them a decisive bloc that no candidate can afford to ignore. The Ahom community, to which Gogoi himself belongs, accounts for a nearly equal share of around 49,000 voters, or roughly 31% of the total electorate.Khowang will see a four-cornered contest, with BJP fielding Chakradhar Gogoi — the former MLA of the now-abolished Moran Assembly seat — as its candidate. Chakradhar Gogoi is also from the Ahom community, setting up a straight competition between two Ahom candidates for the community’s vote. Dr Prabhakar Das of JMM and Independent candidate Biju Dowarah are the two other candidates in the fray. Dowarah, formerly with the Congress, chose to contest as an Independent after the Congress decided to cede the Khowang seat to its ally AJP. Notably, no candidate from the tea community is contesting from Khowang.For Lurinjyoti Gogoi, however, this election is far more than a campaign event — it is a personal and political litmus test. Despite being the most recognisable face of the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) movement in Assam, Gogoi has never won an assembly election. In the 2021 polls, he contested simultaneously from both Duliajan and Naharkatia assembly seats but finished third in both constituencies where the BJP ultimately won. He polled 24,192 votes in Duliajan and 25,232 votes in Naharkatia — creditable numbers, but short of what was needed for victory.The Khowang seat, carved out afresh through delimitation, represents an opportunity for Gogoi to finally translate his mass appeal and political profile into electoral success. With a Congress-AJP alliance ensuring he does not face the Congress directly, and with the tea and Ahom vote blocs both within reach, the conditions are arguably more favourable than in 2021.
