Ashraful Hussain’s story demonstrates that even with flaws in Indian democracy, it is still possible for youth from marginalised groups to get elected.
At loggerheads
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With farmers livid with the Bharatiya Janata Party over the new, contentious farm laws, there was a presumption that the next assembly election in Punjab would be a cakewalk for the Congress. But there is a side show that got bigger and cast a shadow on Congress politics in the state. This is the running feud between the chief minister, Amarinder Singh, and the mercurial Navjot Singh Sidhu who resigned from the ministry and kept aloof. The fight is now full blown, with Sidhu taking a public stand against the CM in the sacrilege case and accusing him of shielding the Badal family. He said that most members of the legislative assembly know that the government is running according to the wishes of the Badals more than those of the Congress. The CM hit back, daring Sidhu to contest against him in Patiala if he wanted to forfeit his deposit.
Akhil Gogoi and the Congress Failure in Assam Two prominent leaders of anti-CAA protests formed their own parties
In the recently concluded elections in Assam, it turns out that if the votes of the Congress-led Mahajot alliance and the alliance between the Assam Jatiya Parishad and Raijor Dal were combined they would have been in a position to prevent the BJP forming the government in Assam.
In 14 seats the Mahajot and AJP-RD votes taken together are greater than those earned by the BJP-led Mitrajot. Subtracting these seats from the 75 won by the Mitrajot, and adding them to the Mahajot and AJP-RD combined strength of 51, yields a different result.
Courtesy Ashraful Hussain
A 27-year-old social activist from Assam, Ashraful Hussain, successfully contested the 2021 assembly elections from the Chenga constituency to become the youngest legislator in the state. Hussain was born in Haripur village in the riverine area of Assam’s Barpeta district. He grew up in a community of Bengal-origin Muslims or Miya Muslims and witnessed first-hand the struggle for citizenship faced by his people, especially while the government updated of the National Register of Citizens in the state. The process, which requires residents to prove their citizenship, stripped lakhs of Assamese residents of their rights.
Hussain has been part of a literary movement of Miya poetry in the state, in which poets highlight the discrimination and existential fears of the Miya Muslim community. The poets’ assertion of their Miya identity and language prompted backlash, including police complaints accusing them of defaming the Assamese people, and promin
Explained: What Post-Poll Survey By Lokniti-CSDS Tells Us About Recent Assembly Elections In Assam, Kerala
by Swarajya Staff - May 12, 2021 12:30 AM
Himanta Biswa Sarma and Pinarayi Vijayan
Snapshot
The survey concluded that the local issues were of paramount importance for the voters in the Assembly elections.
A special post-poll survey conducted by the Lokniti-CSDS for
The Hindu shines light on the electoral trends in the states of Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
The survey concluded that the local issues were of paramount importance for the voters in the Assembly elections.
âEach of the surveyed States had specific local variables that swayed and determined the choices of the respondents. Clearly, the voters were determining their electoral choice for State and national elections distinctly,â