A Correspondent
Silchar: Leaders and cadres of both the BJP and the Congress in Karimganj were working overtime to calculate the votes they had polled in last Friday’s election. Amid this exercise, the Congress MLA from the North Karimganj seat, Kamalakha Dey Purkayastha, stepped into the district BJP office with some of his supporters for a threadbare booth-wise discussion of the votes the ruling party candidate, Kripanath Mallah, had polled. Purkayastha was welcomed by the district BJP president, Subrata Bhattacharjee, who used to be a staunch critic of the Congress before the latter suddenly changed his allegiance to the Himanta Biswa Sarma. The Karimganj Lok Sabha election this time witnessed a peculiar scenario as Purkayastha, in spite of being a Congress MLA, was seen openly campaigning for the BJP, and his party significantly did not take any steps against him. Another Congress MLA, Siddeque Ahmed, who had earlier been expelled by the party, also threw himself in to garner Muslim support for the BJP. Both Purkayastha and Ahmed were assigned the task of ensuring Muslim votes for BJP candidate Mallah.
In a post-poll preliminary assessment, it appeared that the BJP had polled a section of the Muslim votes, particularly from the fishermen community. But the lion’s share of the minority votes had apparently swung in favour of Congress candidate Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Chowdhury. Surprisingly, AIUDF candidate Sahabul Islam Chowdhury literally dropped out of the race on election day. In a social media message, Sahabul asked the Muslim voters to cast their vote in favour of the one whom the minorities seemed to support more.
In this backdrop, both the Congress and the BJP looked confident of winning the Karimganj seat. However, the Congress had moved the returning officer’s desk to order repoll in at least 30 booths, accusing the BJP of massive rigging.
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