The incumbent Congress government hopes for good results out of the peace initiative card and development, while opposition parties tried to woo voters highlighting the Congress-led central government’s corruption relating to the Commonwealth Games, 2G spectrum and Adarsh Society scam.

At least in Assam and Puducherry, the Congress is fighting to regain power, whereas the party is expected to increase its tally in West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. An electorate of around 15 crore is expected to vote for their preferable candidates in these elections, the counting of all provinces is due on the 13th of May.

Officially, Prime Minister Dr. Singh represents Assam in the upper house of the Indian Parliament. The northeastern state had gone for poling on the 4th and 11th of April. By virtue of his residency, Dr. Singh was supposed to come to Guwahati to exercising his franchise. But he did not turn up.

This has given ample scope for the firebrand opposition party leader Narendra Modi to criticize Dr. Singh as insensible to the exercise. The Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Chief Minister of Gujarat went on to say that he was pained to know that Dr. Singh did not go to Assam to cast his vote in the second and final phase of elections on the 11th of April.

“Dr Singh and his wife are registered as voters in Dispur constituency of Assam. As a responsible citizen of the country he should have been there for voting. But ignoring the important duty, they have only sent wrong signals to the new generation,” the Gujarat Chief Minister asserted, while addressing a public rally in Gandhinagar recently.

The Congress however rejected the allegation and clarified that the Prime Minister had to leave for China and Kazakhstan on the 12th of April and hence he could not be in Assam on the previous day. The party also stated that Dr. Singh and his wife Gursharan Kaur exercised their franchises through postal ballots.

But controversy related to his residency in Assam remained in the media as a bright Assamese political leader Pradyut Bora argued that it was big lie. The young BJP leader even claimed that ‘his Rajya Sabha membership is based on a lie and so thus his premiership’.

Not too long back, the banned United Liberation Front of Asom also called Dr. Singh a liar because of his official residential address in Guwahati. The militant outfit, which is fighting the Indian Union government for a Swadhin Asom, argued that the economist turned politician actually hails from Punjab and holds a rented house in Guwahati to contest the Rajya Sabha polls from Assam.

Dr. Singh, who was born in Gah (Punjab of Pakistan) is officially a permanent resident of Assam and his address is shown in the government documents as House No 3989,

Nandan Nagar, Sarumotoria, Dispur, Guwahati -781006, Assam.

All these arrangements were made by the then Assam Chief Minister Hiteswar Saikia in 1991 to facilitate Dr. Singh to reach the upper house of Indian Parliament as a Congress nominee. In the PV Narasimha Rao government, Dr. Singh served as the Union Finance Minister and initiated for liberalizing the stout Indian economy.

Since then the Oxford Doctorate economist has remained a Rajya Sabha member from Assam and incidentally he became the premier instead of the Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi. After the general election in 2009, Dr. Singh, though he did not contest in the Lok Sabha election, became Prime Minister for the second consecutive time.

The ULFA hardliners called for an Assam Bandh (shutdown or total non-cooperation) on the 2nd of April to protest against the visit of Dr. Singh to Assam for poll campaigning ahead of 126 State Legislative Assembly elections. In an e-mail statement issued by the ULFA (Paresh Barua faction) alleged that Dr. Singh had made enough useless promises to the people of Assam. The last one was the promise made by him to the ULFA leaders to discuss all core issues for political solution of the Assam-India conflict, but it was not materialized.

The 12 hours bandh had an impact on the state, where the shut down was almost total in Brahmaputra valley and was partially effective in the Barak Valley of Assam. The roads wore a deserted look as there was little traffic and shops were also closed, though the train and air services were operational as usual.

The armed group, which has been maintaining a war against New Delhi for three decades, earlier called for a day long Assam bandh on the 28th of March, the day Dr. Singh initially planned to visit the state. Suddenly Dr. Singh’s visit was postponed and the outfit too immediately withdrew their bandh call.

Nava Thakuria