Dibrugarh: Duliajan in Dibrugarh district is bracing for one of its most fiercely contested electoral battles in recent memory, with political analysts identifying it as one of the six assembly seats in the district where Congress has a genuine chance of unseating BJP — riding on a powerful wave of anti-incumbency fuelled by two decades of crumbling roads, chronic waterlogging and unchecked floods and erosion.The principal contest will be between former Union minister of state and two-time BJP MLA Rameswar Teli and Congress candidate Dhrubajyoti Gogoi, with JMM’s Peter Minj and independents Biju Gogoi and Aruna Bora joining in.
In a telling sign of the ruling party’s anxiety over the seat, BJP dropped incumbent MLA Terash Gowala — who had held the seat for ten consecutive years, winning in 2016 and 2021 — and replaced him with Teli, a heavyweight with pedigree.“Replacing your sitting MLA just before an election is an admission that something has gone seriously wrong. BJP knows Gowala’s record on roads and infrastructure was indefensible,” Ananta Gogoi, a resident of Duliajan, said.Despite holding the seat for a decade, Gowala leaves behind constituencies where most roads remain in a deplorable condition. Yet what makes BJP’s position particularly uncomfortable is that Teli governed this same constituency for the ten years before Gowala. The road infrastructure was in terrible shape during his tenure as well.“People are saying that Teli had ten years, Gowala had ten. Twenty years and still the same broken roads. Whose turn is it to fix them now?” Bhaskar Handique, a voter, said.Congress has fielded Dhrubajyoti Gogoi, who came agonisingly close to victory in 2021, losing to Gowala by 8,110 votes. Critically, AJP president Lurinjyoti Gogoi had also contested that election and polled 24,192 votes. Political observers believe that had Lurinjyoti not split the anti-BJP vote, Dhrubajyoti would have won comfortably.This time, with Congress and AJP fighting as allies, that equation has shifted dramatically in the opposition’s favour.“The arithmetic is simple. The votes that went to AJP last time are coming to us now. Dhrubajyoti will win,” said Rajkumar Mahato, a Congress worker in Duliajan.
