Delimitation, welfare schemes reap dividends for BJP in Assam

In the end, it all boiled down to arithmetic and a politician’s calculations, plus his gut feeling from having spent decades in the field. A month before the Assam poll outcome, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma pulled out a scrap of paper on which he had scrawled his predictions.

The best score, he had written, would be 101, a “better” one would be 90-plus and the “worst” scenario would be 88. It turned out, he later said, using cricket parlance, a “hat-trick with a century”.

Calmly outlining his strategy to journalists as the scale of the BJP’s huge win and the Opposition’s equally devastating loss in Assam became clear, Sarma described how, as chief minister and chief campaigner, he focused on 102-104 Hindu-majority constituencies. He left aside 22 seats where the Muslim population was over 80%.

It was a simple strategic choice made easier by his sleight of hand three years ago when some constituencies were redrawn, converting Muslim-majority Assembly seats into ones dominated by Hindus, including Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste groups. Thus, even constituencies where Muslims had a significant demographic presence and often played a decisive role in electoral wins or losses were reshaped and given SC and ST tags.

Post-delimitation, the number of Muslim-dominated seats fell from about 30 to 22 in the 126-seat Assembly. At the end, the BJP and its allies won 102 seats.

In the process, state politics was turned on its head –Muslim candidates won 18 of the 19 seats for the Congress, triggering BJP jibes about the party being dependent on minority votes. Polarisation was clear -- a process that had begun over the years and sharpened as the elections neared. The rout of the Congress was so complete that the sons of three former chief ministers lost: Gaurav Gogoi, son of the late Tarun Gogoi, and himself the challenger to Sarma; Debabrata Saikia, son of the late Hiteswar Saikia; and Diganta Barman, son of the late Bhumidhar Barman.

Although the BJP’s ally, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), picked Muslim candidates in minority-dominated constituencies -- an acknowledgement of their influence across Lower and Central Assam -- none of these candidates won. They lost primarily to Congress nominees, showing that a connection to the BJP, even through an alliance, was unacceptable to voters here.

The strategic intervention of reframing constituencies, in addition to popular schemes of rolling out a transactional set of programmes -- including welfare schemes for women, students and other groups over the years as well as extensive infrastructure projects of roads and bridges -- paid rich dividends. First-time aspirational young voters, including GenZ, saw the BJP as a party with a visible leadership, clear goals and well-designed welfare schemes. The sobriquet of “Mama” brought Sarma closer to younger audiences; he energised them by dancing on the stage, dashing about on the campaign trail, waving to crowds and displaying inexhaustible energy day and night.

Although the infrastructure campaign has faced criticism for over-concentrating on the political and commercial capital of Guwahati, this criticism has been subdued by the landslide verdict.

The Opposition’s weakness has fuelled concern that the ruling alliance can now drive a campaign of polarisation that could neither be challenged adequately within the legislature nor outside of it. Rokibuz Zaman, a journalist, says that while the results were on expected lines, they represented “a win for polarisation politics and institutional othering”.

Assam is a complex state with many ethnic and religious strands making up the mosaic of society. The BJP says it supports “indigenous” Muslims who trace their ancestry back to centuries ago, unlike Bengali-speaking or Bengali-origin Muslims. Yet, even some of the indigenous people who are Assamese speakers say they have faced discrimination.

Sarma has also said that he plans to use a 1950 law to address the entry of alleged illegal immigrants from Bangladesh from the state. A Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) approved last September by the state Cabinet empowers district officials to initiate action against suspected immigrants under the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950. This is still a process that is being tested.

The problem of illegal immigration has persisted in Assam’s politics for decades. The issue has resisted resolution despite numerous laws, including amendments to the Citizenship Act, a special accord in 1985 that sought to end an agitation against immigrants and the more recent Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that provides citizenship to members of six religions, barring Muslims who have fled Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Before retaining power, Sarma had said that, if elected, his government would pursue these agendas, framing it in a larger security context as well as concerns about “civilisational” survival. He and other party leaders have justified efforts to push back “declared foreigners” into Bangladesh, a move that recently triggered a sharp reaction from Dhaka. Those who have been deemed “foreign nationals” have emerged through a tortuous process via numerous quasi-judicial foreigners’ tribunals in the state.

Sarma’s other priorities will continue to be the fundamentals -- Assam’s development indices, especially education and health, still need much improvement. There is the challenge of strengthening infrastructure growth and spurring greater investment to flow into the state and subsequently the region. Major corporates such as the Tatas, Adanis and Ambanis have pledged and begun making substantial investments in various sectors.

One issue that is bound to confront the government in the coming weeks is the annual spectre of flooding caused by the Brahmaputra and its major tributaries. This, like the question of migration, is not an issue that goes away, even with the passage of time and improved technology, and with or without large dams under construction upstream in neighbouring Arunachal Pradesh to mitigate flood impact in the plains below.

Many eyes in Delhi and within the North-East are on Assam and how Sarma uses his vast mandate to steer his state to growth with stability, manage its complicated social and political fabric and meet the high expectations of an aspiring generation.