“Who is Badruddin Ajmal?” That was former chief minister Tarun Gogoi’s bristling question when the perfume baron formed the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) ahead of the 2006 assembly elections in Assam. It came after Gogoi had reportedly turned down the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind’s offer for help in return for a promise in writing that he would work for the welfare of Muslims. The AIUDF responded by winning 10 seats. The Congress, though, went on to form the second of the three successive governments it would eventually head. Focused as they were on the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), neither the Congress nor the AIUDF had, at that point, reckoned with the possible emergence of the BJP as a force to contend with in Assam. By the time they did, following the arrival of the party at the Centre under Narendra Modi as prime minister, it was a bit too late, and the BJP stormed to power in Assam, decimating the Congress in 2016 and also singeing the AIUDF.
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The BJP did a repeat this time—ironically, despite the Congress and the AIUDF finally joining hands at the behest of none other than Gogoi, who had kept the Badruddin outfit away all along, just months before he succumbed to Covid. Together, the Congress and the AIUDF did better than they had done separately in 2016, but not enough to shut the door on the BJP. The saffron party, though, could not improve on its last count. In fact, the alliance led by the party and comprising the AGP and the nascent United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL), which replaced the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF), fell short by 11 seats from the 86 it had bagged in 2016, and yet managed to sail through comfortably against the opposition Congress-led alliance’s 49.
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While the opposition alliance did well in lower Assam and Barak valley where Muslims hold sway over a large number of seats, the presence of the AIUDF robbed the Congress of any chance of a credible performance in upper Assam. The BJP had successfully instilled the fear of a ‘Bangladeshi’ becoming chief minister, and the culture and civilisation of the Assamese being in danger from the ‘Mughal invasion’ if the alliance were to win. The polarisation was complete.
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It was expected that the birth of two parties—Raijor Dal, led by imprisoned peasant leader Akhil Gogoi, and the Asom Jatiya Parishad (AJP) under former AASU leader Lurinjyoti Gogoi—would pose difficult questions to the BJP in upper Assam and even win a few seats to dent the saffron party’s chances of retaining power for the second successive term, given that the Congress-AIUDF alliance would take care of lower Assam and Barak valley.
The expectations from Raijor Dal and the AJP stemmed particularly from their strident opposition to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and for the cause of regionalism. Upper Assam had been witness to large-scale protests against CAA, which resulted in the death of five protesters in police firing. In the end, only Raijor Dal’s Akhil Gogoi won from Sibsagar, becoming the first candidate in Assam to win while in jail, where he was sent after the 2019 anti-CAA protests. The Congress, which too had opposed CAA, also failed to cash in on the sentiment against the legislation.
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The results indicate that while opposition to CAA might have been an affair of the heart, it was not a strong enough pull for the people to translate into votes. Or for that matter, even the issue of regionalism. The champions of regionalism, AGP, which had formed the government twice, is itself in decline; from 14 seats it won in 2016 in alliance with the BJP, the party slipped to only nine this time.
What further held the Congress alliance back was the poor showing by the BPF, a late entrant. The BPF had won 12 seats in 2016 and also emerged as the single-largest party in the elections to the Bodoland Territorial Council. This time, it ended up winning only four seats. Had the BPF wielded its earlier clout, it could have helped the Congress win seats in those areas outside the Bodoland Territorial Region where Bodos command a significant number of votes. The nascent UPPL played spoilsport for the BPF, winning six crucial seats and swelling the ruling alliance’s kitty.
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However, irrespective of the end results, it was clear as the days wore on that the BJP was fighting a tough battle it had probably not anticipated. That the top BJP brass, including the prime minister, had to visit the state several times to shore up the party’s chances was a pointer to that. The party, however, managed to cross the line riding the polarisation it could create, particularly raising the spectre of ‘Bangladeshis’ swamping the land and obliterating the indigenous identity in the event of an opposition victory, besides the dollops of welfare measures targeting women and the tea garden workers that it had already put in place and the promise of more—thus ensuring the two crucial sections would stand by its side. Moreover, the split in votes between the Congress-led alliance and that of the AJP and Raijor Dal also helped the BJP win a number of seats. On the other hand, by winning over some smaller tribes, the BJP was able to neutralise the impact of anti-CAA sentiment to a large extent.
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As the BJP-led NDA assumes power in Dispur, the Congress has much to introspect on where it lost the plot, with one critical aspect being finding a face that would sell across Assam. The party didn’t have one or failed to project anyone, while the BJP had both Sarbananda Sonowal and Himanta Biswa Sarma. As for the state, the results have at least thrown up a numerically stronger opposition, made even stronger by the presence of the one-man army of Akhil Gogoi, the ‘lion’ to his supporters.
Some fireworks are imminent.
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By Dipankar Roy in Guwahati
