A couple on their way to attend chief minister Tarun Gogoi’s election rally at Dhekiajuli in Sonitpur on Tuesday. Picture by Eastern Projections

Tezpur/Dhubri, Nov. 5: Campaign for byelections to two Assembly seats in Assam drew to a close this evening with parties looking at the bypolls as a test case for the 2011 Assembly elections.

Though the outcome of the results of Saturday’s byelections to the Dhekiajuli seat in Sonitpur and the South Salmara seat in Dhubri will not affect the Tarun Gogoi-led coalition in Dispur, the Congress and the Opposition parties see the fight as a prelude to a “bigger” battle.

On the surface, the fight is mainly between the ruling Congress’s Bhimananda Tanti, AGP’s Siba Charan Sahu and the AIUDF’s Lenin Basumatary in the Adivasi-dominated Dhekiajuli.

In the Muslim-dominated South Salmara, the contest is mainly restricted to Congress’s Wazed Ali Choudhury and AIUDF’s Abdur Rahman Ajmal, the son of party president Badruddin Ajmal.

However, the beeline of ministers, MLAs and MPs to the “non-happening” constituencies for campaign clearly suggests that the leading contenders are setting their sights on the 2011 Assembly elections.

“By wresting the two seats from the Opposition, the Congress will put itself in a position to claim that its development initiatives have found favour with the voters even in Opposition strongholds,” a political observer said.

“Wins for the AGP-BJP combine and the AIDUF will boost their morale, giving their party members something to look forward to though the Congress has got two straight terms at Dispur. It is for this that the bypolls are important.”

The importance chief minister Tarun Gogoi and his cabinet colleagues have given to the bypolls, particularly in South Salmara, a Congress bastion overtaken by the AIUDF, is more than underlined by the campaign that ended this evening.

Gogoi, had flown there twice by helicopter and addressed five rallies in different places, to win back the voters in favour of party candidate Choudhury, a former minister. “A win will also nip in the bud any move within the Congress for a tie-up with the Opposition party in the 2011 elections,” a PCC insider said.

PCC president Bhuba-neswar Kalita, ministers Bhumidhar Barman, Rockeybul Hussain, Nazrul Islam, among others, have also campaigned for Choudhury.

Gogoi also visited Dhekiajuli and campaigned with equal gusto for Tanti. Kalita, ministers Himanta Biswa Sarma, Nurjamal Sarkar and Prithibi Majhi are the other big names campaigning for Tanti as the seat had been won thrice in a row by the AGP.

While the AGP MLAs and leaders have set up bases in Dhekiajuli, the AIUDF top brass is leaving no stone unturned in South Salmara. The AGP is being supported by the BJP in Dhekiajuli. The BJP is contesting South Salmara supported by the AGP.

There are seven candidates in fray in each of the two constituencies. The byelections will also be a test for the AGP-BJP electoral alliance.

“An adverse result will put the alliance under more strain,” an AGP leader said.