Sitting BJP MP from Jorhat Lok Sabha seat, Topon Kumar Gogoi, exuded confidence in retaining the constituency by trouncing his rival Gaurav Gogoi of the Congress by a margin of over two lakh votes.
In an interview to PTI, the BJP leader asserted that people of his constituency and the entire country want Narendra Modi elected as prime minister for the third consecutive term so that the "development journey continues”. He also claimed that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, which the Opposition is "trying to make an election issue", is not a concern among voters.
"My campaigning is going on very well. Political meetings are being held in every panchayat of all the legislative assembly constituencies of Jorhat, and I am getting spontaneous reactions from people irrespective of religion, caste and creed," the BJP MP said.
Jorhat will vote in the first phase on April 19 along with four other seats in Upper Assam.
‘People have full faith in the BJP’
"We have done enough work in the tea gardens. Earlier, no initiatives were taken for the garden areas. While I was the power minister in the Assam government, I provided new connections to 24 lakh people. I gave individual electric meters to tea garden quarters instead of cluster meters. Ambulance service has also been started in the tea garden areas," Mr. Gogoi said.
Asserting that people have full faith in the BJP, he said there is no anti-incumbency in Jorhat as his “performance speaks about it”, and there is a "hell and heaven difference" between pre and post 2016 Assam.
The BJP assumed power in Assam for the first time in 2016 with alliance partners, and subsequently formed the second consecutive government in 2021. Asked if he was worried over the fact that a united opposition has fielded Gaurav Gogoi against him, the BJP MP said: "Do I look like scared? I know what people want. I have been with them in their hour of need. This time, the margin will increase dramatically. I will win by a margin of a minimum of two lakh votes. Following the delimitation exercise, the number of voters in Jorhat has increased with an electorate of 17.5 lakh.”
Mr. Gogoi had won by a margin of 82,653 votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections by polling 5,43,288 votes against 4,60,635 of Congress' Sushanta Borgohain, who later joined the BJP.
While campaigning in Majuli on April 4, Gaurav Gogoi had expressed confidence that he would win the Jorhat Lok Sabha seat, asserting that Topon Gogoi would “definitely lose if the number of selfies clicked with him (Gaurav) by the people convert into votes”. Gaurav Gogoi is the sitting MP from the Kaliabor constituency, which was rechristened as Kaziranga after delimitation. Following this, he was assigned the task of taking on the BJP in Jorhat, which has become a stronghold of the ruling party over the last 10 years.
Asked about his opinion on Mr. Gaurav Gogoi, the sitting Jorhat MP said: "I don't make any personal comment on anyone. I am a candidate of the NDA and all parties are giving me full support. I will win with a huge margin."
On the Congress MP's repeated assertion that Mr. Topon Gogoi remained silent inside and outside Parliament during the last five years, the latter wondered if the Opposition party even cared to look at the proceedings of the House. "People elected me to work and solve the problems of the constituency, and I am doing that. They did not elect me to create nuisance inside the House," the BJP MP said.
The BJP has 303 MPs of its own and the whip decides who will ask what in Parliament. “We are the soldiers of a disciplined party,” he said. "There are hardly four-five opposition leaders who can speak well. So, they have to raise their voice on almost all issues," he added.
On CAA
On the contentious CAA, he said nobody is concerned about the act as people know it will not impact the interests of Assam. "I have been meeting people across the length and breadth of the constituency. Has anyone asked about it? There is no concern at all. Those who oppose the CAA will have to go to the court, as it was duly passed by Parliament and rules were framed accordingly,” the BJP MP said.
The Jorhat constituency was earlier held by Gaurav's father Tarun Gogoi, the charismatic late CM. Among the communities that have a significant population here are Ahom, Thengal-Kachari, Mising and the tea tribes.
