Hojai town, with a municipal board, is the headquarters of the Hojai district in central Assam, and a general (unreserved) Assembly constituency since its establishment in 1967. It is one of the 10 segments of the Kaziranga Lok Sabha constituency. Hojai is famously known as the “Perfume Town” of Assam due to its prominence in agarwood (Agar/Aquilaria) oil extraction and trade, which forms a significant part of the local economy alongside agriculture. The town is situated on the banks of the Kapili and Jamuna rivers, tributaries of the Brahmaputra, and has experienced rapid growth as an educational and trade hub in recent decades.
Hojai has voted in 12 Assembly elections since its inception. The Congress party has won this seat six times, the BJP twice, while the Swatantra Party, the Janata Party, the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), and an Independent have held this seat once each.
Ardhendu Kumar Dey of the Congress party, who had previously won the seat thrice, in 1991, 1996 and 2006, snatched the seat from his conqueror Aditya Langthasa of the AIUDF by 19,894 votes in 2011. Shiladitya Dev of the BJP, who had finished third, opened the BJP’s account in 2016, as he defeated Dhaniram Thousen of the AIUDF by a huge margin of 55,859 votes. Ardhendu Dey, the sitting MLA of Congress, finished a distant third. Both the BJP and the Congress party opted to go to the polls with new candidates in 2021. The BJP retained the Hojai seat with its nominee Ramkrishna Ghosh prevailing over Congress’s Debabrata Saha by 33,782 votes.
Unlike the Assembly election, where the BJP took time to bloom, the BJP has led in all four Lok Sabha elections in the Hojai segment since 2009. It led the AIUDF by 24,942 votes in 2009 and 39,682 votes in 2014. The BJP’s lead increased further, as it led the Congress party by 48,560 votes in 2019 and 67,240 votes in 2024.
Hojai constituency had 250,410 eligible voters on its roll for the 2026 Assembly elections, up from 243,564 in 2024. While the SIR 2025 had no negative impact in this constituency, the 2023 delimitation witnessed a decline of 22,322 voters from the 265,886 registered voters it had in 2021. Earlier, it stood at 245,476 in 2019, 225,461 in 2016, 208,361 in 2014 and 203,693 in 2011.
The delimitation, which changed the voter demography drastically, as the figure about removal of 22,322 voters masks the ground impact, considering a large number of ineligible voters were removed, and names of eligible voters were added. Additionally, several Muslim-majority villages and booths were transferred to neighbouring constituencies, and the Hindu-majority villages and booths were included in the reorganised Hojai constituency. Before the delimitation, Muslims were the most dominant bloc at 34.90 per cent of the voters, while the Scheduled Castes accounted for 18.52 per cent and the Scheduled Tribes 2.96 per cent of the electorate.
Hojai was a predominantly rural constituency with 71.63 per cent of its voters based in the countryside, compared to 28.37 per cent who lived in the Hojai municipal board limits. These figures are expected to have changed since the Delimitation Commission rejigged its boundaries in its endeavour to equally distribute voters across all constituencies of the state.
The voter turnout has remained robust at 77.80 per cent in 2011, 83.67 per cent in 2014, 86.13 per cent in 2016, 85.59 per cent in 2019, 83.24 per cent in 2021 and 83.67 per cent in 2024.
The constituency features a mix of Assamese-speaking Hindus, Bengali-speaking groups, tea garden communities, and other indigenous populations contributing to its diverse character.
The Hojai constituency covers parts of the Hojai district in central Assam with flat alluvial plains of the Brahmaputra Valley and gentle undulations towards the south. The terrain supports paddy farming, vegetable cultivation, spices and agarwood plantations, but is prone to seasonal flooding from rivers like the Kapili and Jamuna. Livelihoods in Hojai depend mainly on agriculture, agarwood oil extraction and trade, small industries, trade, and education-related services. Infrastructure includes good road connectivity via National Highway 27, rail access at Hojai station, a key stop on the Guwahati-Lumding line, and basic amenities in the municipal board area with ongoing developments in industrial estates, rural roads, and flood management.
The nearby towns include Nagaon to the east, about 35-40 km away, and Lumding to the west, roughly 45-50 km away. The state capital, Dispur/Guwahati, lies around 170-180 km west.
Hojai has shifted decisively from being a Congress bastion to becoming a BJP stronghold. The BJP has an enviable record of having won and led in six of the last seven elections held here over the past 17 years. This itself was enough to put the BJP ahead of its rivals. What, however, is scary for its opponents is its growing popularity, which reflects in its ever growing margins.
Hojai is headed for a multi-cornered contest in the 2026 Assembly elections. The main contest is expected to be between the BJP and the Congress party, while others in the fray may add colour to the contest. Both these parties have changed their candidates, with the BJP reverting to its 2016 winner Shiladitya Dev, and the Congress party has fielded a new candidate in Jhili Choudhury, a local social activist. The AIUDF, after walking out of the Congress-led opposition alliance, might spoil whatever chances of victory the Congress may have had by fielding its candidate. This means, split in the Muslim votes, which would further bolster the BJP’s prospect of scoring a hat-trick of victories in the Hojai constituency during the 2026 Assam Legislative Assembly elections.
(Ajay Jha)
