By Arshad Ahmed
Assam, India – When elections are around, Islam Uddin takes it upon himself to raise awareness about the importance of casting votes. The 55-year-old retired teacher from Katigorah, an electoral constituency in India’s northeastern state of Assam that lies on the border with Bangladesh, goes door-to-door to urge other Muslims to vote.
“It’s about sending our representative to speak for us,” Uddin told Al Jazeera, his smile widening.
But as Assam goes to the polls on April 9 to choose a new government after five years, Uddin’s excitement is clouded by a constant worry: Will his efforts even matter?
Following a 2023 order from the Election Commission of India to redraw the boundaries of parliamentary and state legislature constituencies in Assam, the electoral math of Katigorah – bordered by the ancient Borail hills to the north and the Barak River to the south – has dramatically changed.
The constituency’s population was previously split almost equally between Hindus and Muslims. Of the state’s main parties, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party – which also rules Assam state – would pick a Hindu candidate. The opposition Congress would often choose a Muslim candidate, as would the All India United Democratic Front, the state’s third largest party, which counts Bengali-speaking Muslims among its key voters.
Now that balance has been upended.
Before delimitation – the process of redrawing constituency boundaries is called – Katigorah had about 1,74,000 voters. “But about 40,000 Hindu voters from the neighbouring legislative constituencies have now been merged with Katigorah, making it a predominantly Hindu majority constituency,” Khalil Uddin Mazumder, former Katigorah legislator from the Congress party, told Al Jazeera. “The chances of electing a Muslim candidate from here have suffered significantly.”
Indeed, major parties have chosen Hindu candidates for Katigorah. But the constituency is not alone. Across the state’s 126 legislative constituencies, borders have been redrawn in a way that – activists like Uddin fear – could politically marginalise Assam’s 11 million Muslims further at a time when the ruling BJP has already targeted them through eviction drives, expulsion policies and vitriolic rhetoric.
This story was originally published in aljazeera.com. Read the full story here.