In Barak Valley roiled by citizenship question, opening for a Muslim MP in seat

The days running up to polling day in Karimganj look a little different this time, says Shahuddin, 35, who runs a tea shop in Bhanga, halfway between Karimganj town and Silchar. Every evening, he has people gathering at his small tea shop for vigorous discussion on the elections and whom they should vote for – unusual for parliamentary elections, he says.

Habibur Rahaman Choudhury, the editor of the only daily newspaper published from Karimganj, Dainik Nababarta Prasanga, agrees. As Karimganj heads for elections on April 26, one of the five seats in Assam voting in the second phase, Choudhury says: “In all my 65 years, this is the greatest enthusiasm I’m seeing for Lok Sabha elections here.”

One key factor this time is the change in the political playing field. The Karimganj Lok Sabha constituency covers two districts of Assam’s largely Bengali-speaking Barak Valley – Karimganj and Hailakandi. The 2011 Census placed the Muslim population of Karimganj and Hailakandi at 56.36% and 60.31%, respectively. And yet, it has never had a Muslim MP.

Next door to the Bangladesh border, in a region that has for long lived under the cloud of citizenship questions, including the National Register of Citizens (NRC), with the tag of “illegal” lingering over its population on account of both language (Bengali) and religion (Muslim), that may change.

After the drastic changes in Barak Valley following last year’s delimitation exercise, Karimganj is no longer a Scheduled Caste-reserved seat. Instead, Silchar, the Barak Valley’s other Lok Sabha seat, is reserved now.

While the contest in Silchar is widely accepted as being a foregone conclusion for the BJP, in Karimganj – which also has a BJP MP – the dynamics are seen as changed. There are a