| ULFA
leaves bloody trail in Dibrugarh
Samudra Gupta
Kashyap
Dibrugarh, May 4:
Terror eclipses the bright sun in Dibrugarh in east Assam. The bodies
of candidates who dared to contest the Assembly polls are piling
up: The latest killing was of AGP-BJP candidate Jayanta Datta on
Tuesday. The Election Commission (EC) has since countermanded polls
there, and workers of the two parties are running scared.
‘‘Dutta was among the architects of the alliance. He had
chances of becoming a minister if the alliance won the election,’’
said businessman Haren Gogoi. Datta’s wife is still in a state
of deep shock. She fainted when Governor S.K. Sinha called on her
at their Milan Nagar residence.
ULFA made its intentions clear on May 1: In its mouthpiece Freedom,
it opposed the ‘‘communal’’ BJP and ‘‘its
collaborator’’ the AGP. It has till now killed 27 in Assam
and injured more than 50 people, including Barpeta’s AGP candidate
Kumar Dipak Das.
On Tuesday,
ULFA launched a simultaneous attack on the AGP, killing two of the
party’s front-ranking leaders in the district. ‘1‘We
have definite clues that ULFA is involved in the killings,’’
said a police officer.
District SP Dipak Kumar said that security has been intensified
and candidates have been told to wrap up campaigning before dark.
‘‘The
fear is spreading to other constituencies of Dibrugarh and Tinsukia,’’
said a senior journalist. But the terror seems to have escaped the
Congress: It was out campaigning in adjoining constituencies of
Lahowal, Chabua and Tinsukia today. The Congress candidate for Chabua,
Raju Shah, could be spotted with a convoy of vehicles, the party
flag fluttering high.
Dibrugarh has been a Congress stronghold throughout. All seven Assembly
seats are dominated by voters from the tea labourers’ community,
and Congress has been fielding maximum number of candidates from
this community.
‘‘Dibrugarh parliamentary constituency has also remained
with the Congress since the first Lok Sabha,’’ said journalist
Iqbal Ahmed. Dibrugarh was among the ‘‘safer’’
seats considered for Sonia Gandhi in 1999, Ahmed said.
But the BJP
has been making inroads into the traditional votebank. The party’s
vote share in the Dibrugarh Lok Sabha seat was 9.05 per cent in
1996. In 1998, it rose to 25.59 per cent and in 1999, to 36.60 per
cent.
Though the Congress
improved its share from 50.68 per cent in 1996 to 64.40 per cent
in 1998, it slipped to 48.66 per cent in the 1999 Lok Sabha polls.
The Congress share has been slipping in the Assembly polls too:
from 44.87 per cent in 1985 to 42.37 per cent in 1991 and finally
to 40.72 per cent in 1996. The AGP and BJP vote share, on the other
hand, collectively constituted 48.18 per cent in the 1996 Assembly
polls.
The ULFA’s links with Dibrugarh also run deep: Both armed wing
chief Paresh Barua and general secretary Anup Chetia (lodged in
a Dhaka jail) hail from the Jerai Chakalibhariya village under Chabua
Assembly constituency.
At the peak of militancy in the state, Dibrugarh and Tinsukia witnessed
the maximum killings. ‘‘Most prominent ULFA leaders have
surrendered. The ones who are left are resorting to hit and run
tactics,’’ claims a senior police officer.
Though the AGP and BJP workers allege a Congress-ULFA nexus, Congress
leaders complain that Governor S.K. Sinha has been favouring the
alliance openly. Apart from Dutta’s residence, he also visited
the AGP and BJP party offices on Thursday.
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