Mariani, a rural Assembly constituency in Jorhat district, lies in the tea-rich belt of Upper Assam, surrounded by sprawling estates and paddy fields. Known for its mixed electorate and steady voter participation, it has long been a Congress stronghold but has seen the BJP make serious inroads in recent years. The seat's political landscape remains fluid, with narrow margins and shifting loyalties keeping both major parties in the fight. It is one of the 10 segments under the Jorhat Lok Sabha constituency.
Established in 1967, Mariani, a general category constituency, has witnessed 14 Assembly elections, including two by-elections held in 2004 and 2021. The Congress party has 11 wins, an Independent once, while the Trinamool Congress and the BJP won the 2004 and 2021 by-elections.
The mother and son duo, Rupam Kurmi and Rupjyoti Kurmi, together have won eight terms. Rupam Kurmi won the seat thrice for the Congress party in 1991, 1996 and 2001. Later, her son Rupjyoti stepped in as her substitute and has won five consecutive terms, beginning 2006. Interestingly, most of their victories were by narrow margins, except in 1991 when Rupam won by 15,831 votes and Rupjyoti in the 2021 bypoll when his victory margin was 40,104 votes.
Having won his first election in 2006, Rupjyoti retained the seat in 2011, defeating Alok Kumar Ghosh of the Trinamool Congress by 7,058 votes. He defeated Ghosh again in 2016, this time representing the Nationalist Congress Party, by 1,793 votes. In 2021, Rupjyoti defeated the BJP’s Ramani Tanti by 2,446 votes. Soon thereafter, he was expelled from the Congress party due to some policy differences, leading to Rupjyoti joining the BJP and contesting the resultant 2021 by-election on the BJP ticket, which he won by 40,104 votes, defeating Congress’s Luhit Konwar.
Voting trends in the Mariani Assembly segment during the Lok Sabha elections tell a different tale, with the BJP performing much better. It led the Congress party by 6,699 votes in 2009, 16,238 votes in 2014 and 14,291 votes in 2019. The Congress party finally managed to snatch the lead from the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections by a margin of 16,785 votes.
The 2025 SIR or even the 2023 delimitation exercises had absolutely no impact on the voters’ base in Mariani. In the final electoral roll released on February 10, 2026, Mariani had 164,989 voters, marking a marginal increase of 2,447 voters from 162,542 voters it had in 2024. In the SIR-like exercise undertaken in 2023, while the majority of the constituencies witnessed deletion of a large number of voters, Mariani added 40,414 voters to its 2021 tally of 122,128 voters. Previously, it was 113,457 in 2019, 104,034 in 2016 and 104,212 in 2011.
No social or religious group dominates the electorate in the Mariani constituency. It had 5.20 per cent Muslim voters, compared to 2.53 per cent Scheduled Castes and 1.28 per cent Scheduled Tribes electorate. It is predominantly a rural seat with 87.36 per cent rural voters and 12.64 per cent urban electorate. The voter turnout has remained robust with 79.85 per cent in 2011, 84.47 per cent in 2016, 78.31 per cent in 2019 and 82.15 per cent in 2021.
Mariani town and the surrounding constituency lie in the central Jorhat district in Upper Assam. The area features flat, fertile plains of the Brahmaputra valley with low-lying agricultural fields and extensive tea gardens, at an average elevation of about 100 metres. The Bhogdoi River flows nearby, with tributaries supporting paddy and tea cultivation. Mariani’s economy revolves around tea estates, paddy farming, small trade and daily wage work in plantations. Infrastructure includes road connectivity via National Highway 715 and state highways linking to major routes. Rail access is available at Mariani Junction on the Northeast Frontier Railway network, a key station on the Lumding-Dibrugarh line. Jorhat Airport (about 20 km west) provides air connectivity. Nearby towns include Jorhat (district headquarters, about 20 km west), Titabor (about 25 km southwest), Golaghat (about 55 km east), Sivasagar (about 70 km northeast) and Dimapur in Nagaland (about 80 km east). The state capital, Dispur/Guwahati, is around 300 km west.
While the once Congress party bastion, Mariani, had started becoming a BJP bastion of late. However, two recent developments are bound to have rung the alarm bells in the BJP. It trailed the Congress party for the first time in the Mariani segment in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and fared rather poorly in the 2022 Mariani Municipal Board elections, in which the BJP could win only 3 of the 10 wards, while the Congress and Independents backed by it won seven wards. These developments have opened up the Mariani seat in the 2026 Assembly elections, setting the stage for a lively, fierce and intriguing election which could go either way.
(Ajay Jha)
