Assam assembly polls: 15 years of Gogoi - Anti-incumbency or home-ground advantage

Titabor, which has been Gogoi's seat for 15 years, has a record for returning Congress candidates since independence, barring once

Titabor has been current Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi’s seat for the last 15 years; however, this time around he is up against a formidable opponent in Bharatiya Janta Party’s state vice-president Kamakhya Prasad Tasa. 

During the 2014 General elections, Tasa handily defeated Congress’ Bijoy Krishna Handique. 
 

Handique, a six-time Member of Parliament from the Jorhat Parliamentary Constituency, lost by a margin of over 1 lakh votes.

Titabor has a predominant Ahom and tea tribe population who are traditional Congress supporters though in some pockets their loyalty has shifted to the BJP in recent years.

Strengths: 

Titabor has a record for returning Congress candidates since independence, barring once. In fact, before Chief Minister Gogoi began his winning streak from the seat, it was held by his brother Dip Gogoi. 

While the BJP hopes that their strong showing in the 2014 polls will carry over in Tasa’s favour, the tribal voters of the region have been traditional Congress loyalists.
 

The Thengal Kacharis, a scheduled Bodo tribe, of the region are grateful to the Chief Minister for ensuring the creation of an Autonomous Council for them.
 

The dominant tea tribe has over 45,000 votes in the constituency and many political observers are of the view that Congress will be able to retain a considerable portion of their votes.   

Apart from the tribal vote, the Muslim-dominated Melamati area of Titabor provides the Congress with a strong traditional pocket borough. According to reports, at a public gathering, attended by Gogoi, in March, the community pledged their 24,000 votes to Congress — the constituency as a whole has 1,36,033 registered voters. 
 

Weaknesses: 

Tasa has been picked by the BJP with an obvious eye on securing the tea tribe vote. 

The party hopes that Tasa’s tea tribe identity will cut into the traditional vote bank of the Congress and secure a good number of votes from a community which has nearly 45,000 votes in its kitty. 

Another complaint against the current dispensation is the slow pace of development. 

The numbers tell the story. With a per capita income of Rs 23,968 in 2014-15, Assam is one of the poorer states in the country. Per capita income growth slowed down to 3.2% over 2010-11 to 2014-15, after growing at roughly 4% over 2005-06 to 2010-11. This occurred despite the state's gross domestic product accelerating over 2010-11 to 2014-15, compared to the earlier period.

In the constituency itself, certain areas still suffer from poor quality of road-connectivity.