BJP wins India’s only ‘monsoon desert’ constituency in Assam

The BJP on Thursday won the by-election to the Dhemaji assembly constituency, taking the party’s seat count in the 126member Assam House to 61.

Dhemaji, suffering for decades from annual floods and desertification, is arguably India’s only ‘monsoon desert’ assembly constituency.

State election officials said BJP candidate Ranoj Pegu got 75,217 votes – 50.13% of the 150,029 votes polled – to defeat his nearest Congress rival Babul Sonowal by 9,285 votes. NOTA (none of the above) finished fourth behind Jadu Hazarika of CPI (Marxist) in the seat reserved for Scheduled Tribes. Two other contestants – Rajkumar Doley, an Independent and Hem Kanta Miri of Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) – brought up the rear.

“My job of living up to expectations gets tough from now on,” Pegu said after officials announced his victory in Dhemaji town, 462km northeast of Guwahati.

Dhemaji, bordering Arunachal Pradesh, is one of Assam’s least developed districts and remains cut off for days because of annual floods. Moreover, sand deposited by the Brahmaputra and its tributaries has turned once-fertile farmlands into unproductive deserts.

“Massive areas in Dhemaji district have been turned into desert, where the original fertile land is 3-16 feet under sand, but a clear picture of the actual desertification is yet to be worked out,” Ravindranath of River Basin Friends, an NGO based at Akajan in the district, said.

The BJP, though, is focussing more on the political gain from the victory. Pegu is expected to be included in CM Sarbananda Sonowal’s cabinet whose expansion is scheduled in April.