After the late Tarun Gogoi’s 15-year tenure, the party overthrew the Congress in 2016, becoming the first BJP government in the Northeast. Eleven of the BJP’s candidates for the upcoming state election are former Congress MLAs from the Gogoi government, which the BJP overthrew, despite ten years of significant changes throughout the state and the area.
Political legend now includes the tragic story of Himanta Biswa Sarma. Sarma, who was once the late chief minister’s blue-eyed boy, became resentful of him after he introduced his son Gaurav to politics. After serving in all three of Tarun Gogoi’s administrations, he left the Congress in 2015 to assist in planning the BJP’s historic victory the following year. Nine additional Congress MLAs joined the BJP a few weeks after he did.
Since then, Sarma’s network of Congress MLAs and leaders has steadily expanded. Ajanta Neog, a minister in the final Tarun Gogoi government, and Pijush Hazarika and Jayanta Malla Baruah, two young first-time MLAs in that final Congress government, are three of the most notable members of his Cabinet after he gave up his ambition and took over as Chief Minister in 2021. These individuals later joined the BJP.
As the most senior Congress leader at the moment to follow in the CM’s footsteps, Pradyut Bordoloi’s move into the BJP now solidifies this circle of power even more. He served as Tarun Gogoi’s minister, just as Sarma and Neog, and he remained a member of the Congress party in the Lok Sabha even after the state administration fell. Bordoloi, who left a secular image behind after more than 40 years with the Congress and a number of party positions, including, unsettlingly for the Congress, as the head of its manifesto committee for the Assam election, has justified his decision to join a government he has vehemently criticised over the years by citing his previous relationship with Sarma.
Bhupen Borah, who had been appointed the Assam Congress president after the party’s debacle in the 2021 election, had also joined the BJP last month.
Eleven of the BJP’s 88 declared candidates, including Bordoloi and Borah, were Congress MLAs during the 2011–2016 period. Sarma, Neog, Hazarika, Malla Baruah, Kamalakhya Dey Purkayastha (who joined the BJP earlier this month), Pallab Lochan Das, Rupjyoti Kurmi, Sushanta Borgohain, and Bolin Chetia are the remaining nine.
Sarma continues to foster this network of former Congress members, even though he has stated that the party’s list acknowledges and supports young, first-time candidates. He cited Pabitra Rabha from Boko, Himanshu Shekhar Baishya from Palasbari, Munindra Das from Behali, Rishiraj Das from Ronganodi, Rupali Langthasa from Diphu, and Dhiraj Gowala from Titabor as examples.
Pradan Baruah and Kripanath Mallah, two more former Congress MLAs from the 2011–2016 administration, are now BJP Lok Sabha MPs. Members of the “old BJP,” or those who had been a part of the party long before this group entered, have often blamed this powerful coterie within the party for their complaints. This has caused BJP veterans Ashok Sarma and Rajen Gohain to flee in recent years.
The current BJP MLA in Dispur, Atul Bora, a veteran of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) who joined the BJP in 2013, is similarly incensed about Bordoloi’s candidature. Bora has accused “betrayal.”
A pattern
The two other Northeastern states where the Congress has since been replaced by the BJP—Arunachal Pradesh, where Pema Khandu leads the party, and Manipur, where N Biren Singh leads it—also exhibit this pattern of former Congress leaders playing a crucial role in the BJP’s ascent.
However, Sarma uses the steady flow of well-known Assamese figures to the BJP for another reason: to demonstrate that his influence goes far beyond the BJP and into the Congress. The Opposition party is upset with Bordoloi and Borah’s exits from the Congress since Sarma had been making fun of the party for a time, not just speculating but outright saying that the two leaders will follow him.
Debabrata Saikia, the leader of the opposition in the Assam Assembly and the son of former chief minister Hiteshwar Saikia, under whom Sarma joined the Congress, is the next leader he is now making this claim about. In an effort to weaken the Opposition party, which is currently led by his bete noire Gaurav Gogoi, he consistently tries to convey that he is still aware of its internal workings.
Naturally, the lack of Muslim candidates in the BJP’s candidate list contrasts sharply with the Congress MLAs of 2011–2016. This time, the BJP has not fielded a single Muslim candidate in a state where the 2011 Census estimated that the Muslim population was over 34%. It will leave that to its regional ally, the AGP, to which three AIUDF Muslim MLAs have defected in recent weeks.
