Guwahati, Oct 10: The BJP wrested the Nagaon Lok Sabha seat from the Congress on Friday, with saffron party candidate Devasish Sharma defeating his nearest rival AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal by 1,42,224 votes in the bypoll, the Election Commission said.
Sharma, a former IAS officer, polled 7,14,349 votes, while Ajmal, the Binnakandi legislator, bagged 5,72,125 votes. Former Congress MLA Sibamoni Bora finished a distant third with 1,29,492 votes, according to data available on the EC website.
The bye-election to the Nagaon Lok Sabha constituency was necessitated after Congress’ Pradyut Bordoloi, who held the seat since 2019, resigned from the grand old party to join the ruling BJP. He successfully contested this year’s assembly elections from the Dispur constituency.
Fifteen candidates contested the Lok Sabha bypoll, and most forfeited their deposits, officials said.
Sharma, 59, joined the Assam Civil Services in 1992 and was first posted in Barpeta.
The parliamentary constituency has eight assembly segments spread across Nagaon and Morigaon districts.
A voter turnout of 76.19 per cent was recorded in the October 6 bypoll.
The constituency was a Congress stronghold since 1952, but the AGP wrested it in 1984 and retained the seat for three consecutive terms before the Congress won it back in 1998.
BJP’s Rajen Gohain, a former Union minister, won the seat for four consecutive terms since 1999. In 2019, Bordoloi won the seat by over 16,750 votes and in 2024, he retained it by a huge margin of more than 2,12,230 votes.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the BJP secured a decisive victory in the bypoll to the Nagaon Lok Sabha constituency, due to the development work undertaken in the state under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Sarma, in a social media post, said that BJP candidate Devasish Sharma emerged victorious in a seat not traditionally considered the party’s stronghold, and the Congress has been pushed to the third place.
”Under the leadership of Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi ji, @BJP4India has secured a decisive victory in the Nagaon Lok Sabha by-election, a seat previously held by the Congress,” the CM said.
This result reflects the PM’s popularity across communities and the continued trust the people of Assam place in his vision of a ‘Viksit Bharat’, Sarma said.
Modi also congratulated the victorious BJP candidates in Assam and West Bengal.
Replying to Modi’s post, Sarma thanked the prime minister for his continued guidance and stellar leadership.
“The result reaffirms what we have been saying all along: Nation is with NaMo!” Sarma asserted.
The chief minister, several of his cabinet colleagues, state BJP president Dilip Saikia and party workers celebrated the win by bursting firecrackers.
Later, the CM told reporters at the party headquarters here that the victory is sweet for the BJP as “we have retained our traditional vote share and also succeeded in getting the support of the religious minority community”.
The constituency was won by the Congress in 2024 by over 2.12 lakh votes, but in just two years, “we managed to win it back and the Congress suffered a stunning defeat”, Sarma said.
“This crushing electoral defeat is a message to Rahul Gandhi – do not side with anarchist forces, you will lose even the seats you once held,” he said. (PTI)
