Guwahati, May 23 (PTI): The saffron surge in the country saw BJP maintaining its winning streak in Assam in the just concluded polls by increasing its tally and its winning margin in most of the nine of the 14 Lok Sabha constituencies it won.
The Congress kept its tally intact at three, losing two and gaining an equal number, while the AIUDF managed to retain only one seat, losing one each to Congress and BJP while a sitting independent MP managed to retain his seat.
The BJP had contested in ten seats, retained six, wrested three and lost only the Nowgong constituency to Congress. The four seats it had left for its alliance partners - three for AGP and one for BPF - were lost by them.
The BJP, with seven members in the last Lok Sabha, gave tickets to two sitting MPs while five others were replaced by new faces with all barring one achieving success.
The Congress managed to retain Kaliabor but lost Silchar and Autonmous District to BJP and wrested Nowgong from BJP and Barpeta from AIUDF.
The winning margins of the BJP candidates who made it to the Lok Sabha increased substantially in Lakhimpur, Dibrugarh, Autonomous District, Gauhati, Mangaldoi, Tezpur, Kaliabor, Barpeta and moderately in Silchar while it came down in Dhubri, Jorhat, Karimganj, Kokrajhar and Nowgong.
Dibrugarh's sitting BJP MP Rameswar Teli won by the highest margin of 3,64,566 votes in the state over former Congress Union Minister Paban Singh Ghatowar, nearly doubling his last term's margin of 1,85,347.
Lakhimpur sitting BJP MP Pradan Barua won by the second highest margin of 3,50,551 votes over Congress candidate Anil Borgohain which is also much higher than his byelection win by 1,90,219 votes.
Gauhati BJP candidate Queen Oja also increased the party's winning margin to 3,45,606, against Congress candidate Bobbeeta Sharma. The margin was higher than the party's 2014 winner Bijoya Chakravorty's margin of 3,15,784 votes.
In Mangaldoi, BJP's Dilip Saikia, who replaced the party's sitting MP Ramen Deka, increased the winning margin against Congress Rajya Sabha MP Bhubaneswar Kalita to 1,38,545 against last time margin of 22,884.
BJP candidate from Tezpur, state labour minister Pallab Lochan Das, who replaced sitting MP R P Sharma, asserted a decisive victory over his Congress rival and retired IAS, M G V K Bhanu by 2,42,841 votes which is much higher than the party's last time margin of 86,020 votes.
In Autonomous District, BJP's Horen Sing Bey wrested the seat from three time sitting Congress MP Biren Singh Engti by a huge margin of 2,39,626 votes which is much higher than the latter's winning margin of 24,095 votes in 2014.
BJP's Rajdeep Roy wrested the Silchar seat from All India Mahila Congress President Sushmita Dev by securing 81,596 votes which is moderately higher than the Congress win by 35,241 votes in 2014.
Among the Congress winning candidates Gaurav Gogoi from Kaliabor increased his winning margin to 2,09,994 from 93,874 against AGP's Manimadhab Mahanta. Congress MLA Abdul Khaleque wrested the seat by 1,40,307 votes from AIUDF which had won by 42,341 votes in 2014.
Kokrajhar sitting independent MP Naba Kumar Sarania managed to retain the seat by defeating BPF candidate and state social welfare minister Pramila Rani Brahma by a margin of 37,786 votes, which is way lower than the 3,55,779 margin in the 2014 polls.
In Jorhat, state power minister Topon Kumar Gogoi, who replaced sitting MP Kamakhya Prasad Tasa, defeated his Congress opponent former MLA Sushanta Borgohain by 82,653 which is lower than the party's last winning margin of 1,02,420 votes.
AIUDF Chief Badruddin Ajmal retained the Dhubri seat for the third successive term by defeating Congress candidate Abu Taher Bepari by 2,26,258 votes, which is lower than his last winning margin of 2,29,730 votes.
BJP wrested the Karimganj seat with Assam Deputy Speaker Kripanath Mallah defeating sitting AIUDF MP Radheshyam Biswas by 38,389 votes, which is considerably lower than the latter's winning margin of 1,02,094 in 2014.
The lowest winning margin was by Congress candidate and former state minister Pradyut Bordoloi who breached the BJP bastion of Nowgong, by defeating party MLA Rupak Sarmah by 16,752 votes.
Sarmah had replaced outgoing minister of state for Railways Rajen Gohain who had retained the seat for the last four terms and had won by 1,43,559 votes in 2014.
