Majbat, also spelt as Mazbat, is a revenue circle and headquarters of the Majbat development block in Assam’s Udalguri district. It is a general (unreserved) Assembly constituency and one of the 11 segments of the Darrang-Udalguri Lok Sabha seat.
The 2023 delimitation exercise significantly altered the electoral map of Udalguri district. Earlier, the district had three Assembly constituencies, Udalguri, Panery and Majbat. While Udalguri and Majbat were retained with changed boundaries, Panery was abolished, and two new constituencies, Tangla and Bhergaon, were carved out with redrawn boundaries and redistributed voters. Majbat now includes parts of the former Majbat and Panery areas, along with some adjoining villages.
Established in 1978, Majbat has participated in 10 Assembly elections so far. Congress was the dominant force in the initial decades, winning four consecutive terms with Silvius Condpan, who had won the inaugural 1978 election on the Janata Party ticket. However, Congress has not won a single election in the past three decades. An Independent won the seat twice in 2001 and 2006, while the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) has remained undefeated since 2011, securing three back-to-back victories.
Rakeshwar Brahma opened the BPF’s account in Majbat in 2011, defeating Jitu Kissan of Congress by a narrow margin of 1,626 votes. Charan Boro retained the seat for the BPF in 2016 by prevailing over Teharu Gour of the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) by 26,218 votes, as the Congress slipped to third place. Charan Boro enabled the BPF to register a hat-trick of wins in 2021 as he defeated Jitu Kissan, the 2011 Congress candidate who had switched to the BJP, by 16,057 votes.
Unlike drawing a blank in the Assembly elections, the BJP has remained a force to reckon with in the Majbat segment during the Lok Sabha polls. It led the BPF by 4,942 votes in 2009. The Congress, which had finished fourth in 2009, surged to a lead of 6,860 votes. The BJP would rather think it was an aberration, since it regained the lead in 2019 over Congress by 14,540 votes, and by 26,273 votes over BPF in 2024. The BJP’s Darrang-Udalguri Lok Sabha candidate Dilip Saikia polled 70,656 votes, while Durgadas Boro of the BPF received 44,383 votes. Congress’s Madhab Rajbangshi finished a distant third after getting support of only 23,090 voters.
Majbat had 186,341 eligible voters on its final electoral roll for the 2026 Assembly elections, marking an increase of 3,160 voters following the SIR 2025 from 183,181 voters it had in 2024. It witnessed a surge of 23,051 voters after the 2023 delimitation, from 160,130 voters it had in 2021. Earlier, it stood at 145,753 in 2019, 132,619 in 2016, 121,421 in 2014, and 119,515 in 2011. The voter turnout has remained robust at 79.94 per cent in 2024, 80.10 per cent in 2021, 83.45 per cent in 2019, 84.48 per cent in 2016, 81.60 per cent in 2014 and 76.14 per cent in 2011.
Before delimitation, Majbat had 22.80 per cent Muslim voters, while the Scheduled Tribes accounted for 22.23 per cent of its voters and the Scheduled Castes 2.08 per cent. While these numbers are expected to have changed after the delimitation adjustments, what might not have changed is its purely rural outlook with zero urban voters.
Demographics, based on available data, largely from the 2011 Census proportions adjusted for the area and 2023 delimitation changes, indicate a substantial presence of Scheduled Tribes along with a notable Muslim population and smaller Hindu and other groups. The constituency remains overwhelmingly rural, with the vast majority of voters living in villages and engaged in agriculture.
The Majbat constituency covers parts of the Udalguri district in central Assam with flat alluvial plains and gentle undulations typical of the Brahmaputra Valley foothills. The terrain supports paddy cultivation, vegetable farming, and horticulture, but is prone to seasonal flooding from tributaries of the Brahmaputra. Livelihoods in Majbat depend mainly on agriculture, small trade, and forest-related activities in nearby patches. Fertile soils and abundant rainfall sustain these activities. Infrastructure includes road connectivity via national and state highways linking to nearby areas, with rail access available at nearby stations like Tangla or Udalguri, about 15-25 km away, depending on the village. Basic amenities serve the villages, with ongoing developments in rural roads and irrigation.
The nearest major town is Udalguri, the district headquarters, about 25-35 km away. Other nearby towns include Mangaldai to the south, roughly 40-50 km away, and Rangia farther south. The state capital, Dispur/Guwahati, lies around 90-110 km southeast.
The United People’s Party Liberal’s decision to walk out of the BJP-led ruling alliance and the Bodo People’s Party replacing it as a constituent of the North East Democratic Alliance may prove a boon in disguise to the state’s ruling coalition in view of the BJP’s strong performance in the parliamentary polls in this segment and the BPF’s three consecutive wins in the last three Assembly elections. The BPF has renominated Charan Boro, who had won two consecutive terms in 2016 and 2021, as its candidate on behalf of the BJP-led ruling coalition, while BJP’s erstwhile ally UPPL has fielded Rabindra Basumatary as its nominee. They will be challenged by Narayan Adhikari of the Congress party, Ashok Gayari of the Voters Party International and Priti Rekha Barla of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. Notably, no Independents are in the fray.
The coming together of the BJP and the BPF has strengthened the claim of the ruling coalition and given the BPF a definite edge over the rivals. A multi-cornered contest, though on paper, it promises to be a contest between two Bodoland parties, BPF and the UPPL, to win the Majbat seat in the 2026 Assembly elections.
(Ajay Jha)
