The BJP-led alliance on Monday convincingly won a third straight term in Assam — a victory shaped by beneficiary schemes, development agenda, delimitation, organisational strength, consolidation of Hindu votes — and chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who was both the face and force behind the ruling combine's campaign and strategy.
Such was the sweep and scale of the victory that it felled most of the Opposition’s leading lights, including Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president Gaurav Gogoi, the leader of Opposition in the Assembly, Debabrata Saikia, and Assam Jatiya Parishad's president Lurinjyoti Gogoi.
In the results for the April 9 single-phase polls declared on Monday, the BJP-led alliance won 82 of the 126 Assembly seats, having more than the majority mark of 64 on its own for the first time since coming to power in 2016. BJP allies BPF and AGP have won 10 seats each, taking the alliance tally to 102. The BJP had won 60 seats in the 2016 and 2021 polls.
Sarma said the verdict was against the Congress's politicisation of Zubeen Garg's death and Pawan Khera's allegations against his wife, Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, of holding multiple passports and properties abroad.
"These allegations were not against me but against a daughter of Assam (referring to his wife). It was done to defame a daughter of Assam. This was the reason Gaurav Gogoi lost. He did not protest when Khera made those allegations," Sarma said, adding that "development, peace and faith of the people of Assam in the BJP to secure their identity" are the three basic reasons for the alliance's victory.
He said the government will pursue the issue of Gaurav and his wife's alleged ISI link now that the polls are over.
On Monday evening, AICC in-charge of Assam Jitendra Singh resigned from his post, owning moral responsibility for the party's debacle.
The Congress won 19 seats and its ally, Raijor Dal, two seats. The other constituents of the Congress-led six-party alliance — Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP), CPM, All Party Hill Leaders Conference and CPIML — failed to open their account.
Of the 19 seats Congress won, only one was won by a Hindu candidate. The remaining 18 winners were Muslims, reflecting the massive polarisation along religious lines because of the BJP's sustained campaign on the threat from illegal Bangladeshi migrants. The Congress had won 29 seats in 2021.
Another Opposition party, the AIUDF, which was not part of the Congress-led bloc, also suffered heavy reverses. It was down to two seats from the 16 it had won in 2021.
The polls had seen a record turnout of 84.96 per cent. The vote share of the BJP, Congress and AIUDF till 10.30pm was 37.81, 29.84 and 5.46 per cent, respectively.
The BJP had contested 90 seats, Congress 98, AIUDF 30 and TMC 22.
Major upsets
Congress candidate Gaurav Gogoi lost to sitting Jorhat BJP MLA, Hitendra Nath Goswami, by 23,182 votes, while Opposition leader and Nazira MLA, Saikia, went down to BJP's Mayur Borgohain by 46,701 votes. The Congress also lost Titabor, which had been with the Opposition party since 2001. Nazira too was a Congress bastion.
TMC win
The Trinamool Congress won the Mandia seat in Lower Assam. Sherman Ali Ahmed, a last-minute entrant to Trinamool, defeated Congress’s Abdul Khaleque by 27,561 votes. Trinamool had last won a seat each in the 2001 and 2011 Assembly polls. Ahmed was a suspended Congress MLA. He had joined the Raijor Dal but had to join Trinamool following objections from the Congress.
Winning factors
Political analyst Rajan Pandey told The Telegraph that the factors which ensured a sweeping victory for the ruling alliance included delimitation, beneficiary schemes, especially women and youth-centric schemes, consolidation of Hindu votes in favour of the ruling alliance and lack of an influential Opposition leader among the state’s leading tribes and communities such as the Bodo, the Mising, the tea tribe, Bengali and the Hindi-speaking community.
Beneficiary and welfare schemes have reached over 60 lakh people out of a population of around 3.3 crore. "It was clearly a vote for the BJP with chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma leading from the front," Pandey said.
He added that Gogoi has to reinvent himself and the party in Assam because it has been wiped out from Upper Assam, Central Assam and North Bank. Only one Hindu candidate (Joy Prakash Das of Nowboicha in North Bank) had won. The party also has to reach out to the Bengali, tea tribe and Hindi-speaking communities, which are overwhelmingly with the ruling BJP alliance, he said.
According to Pandey, Muslim-majority seats came down from around 32 to 22, while tribal seats increased by four during the 2023 delimitation exercise.