HIGH STAKES IN UPPER ASSAM
On March 19, at an election rally in Doom Dooma in upper Assam, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “liar” for not fulfilling the promise he had made in 2016 to tea garden workers to raise their daily wages. The next day, at a rally in Chabua, 30 km away, Modi hit back, saying the Congress had a long history of lying to the tea garden workers. A day later, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, addressing a rally in Nazira, 100 km from Chabua, claimed that the prime minister had never felt the pain of “her sisters in the tea gardens”, working in extreme conditions.
The political rhetoric around tea garden workers is a clear indication of the significant role their votes will play in the 47 constituencies—of the total 126 seats in Assam—that go to polls on March 27, in the first phase of the state assembly election. Most of these constituencies, located in upper Assam, are home to a majority of the nearly 800 tea gardens in the state. The tea garden communities comprise around 17 per cent of Assam’s total population of 31 million. These votes will affect the outcome of at least nine assembly seats directly and have a significant impact in another 25 seats.
This also explains the deluge of images and slogans in the state,
