Year-ender 2024: Political slugfest!

With the 2026 Assam Legislative Assembly election looming large on the horizon, the Opposition Congress in the State is upping the ante by taking out protest programmes like the 'Raj Bhawan Chalo' and 'Janata Bhawan Gherao’, which have turned violent, leading to the death of a Congress activist when police resorted to tear gas to disperse party workers from proceeding towards the Raj Bhawan.

With the Congress-led INDIA bloc in Parliament raising a ruckus over Adani, Ambedkar, and Constitution issues its echoes are also finding their way to Guwahati. To add a local flavour to the protests, the Congress has also raised issues like the withdrawal of smart meters, which have an Adani connection, as they are manufactured by an Adani company.

Interestingly, the Congress protests have come at a time when the ruling BJP alliance has claimed the five LAC seats of Samaguri, Bongaigaon, Sidli, Behali, and Dholai. While the BJP candidates swept the Behali, Samaguri, and Dholai seats, its alliance partners Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and Bodoland People's Party Liberal (BPPL) retained the Bongaigaon and Sidli seats respectively. For the BJP, its victory at Samaguri, where its candidate Diplu Ranjan Sarma defeated Tanzil Hussain, son of Congress stalwart Rakibul Hussain at their family citadel, was significant. Dynastic politics, apart from Badruddin Ajmal's AIUDF not fielding any candidate, may have been important factors contributing to the BJP's victory.

The Lok Sabha mandate earlier in the year had clearly indicated that the religious minority vote had completely shifted to the Congress, and it was abundantly clear in the record 10lakh-plus drubbing that Ajmal, the AIUDF chief, received at the hands of Rakibul Hussain in Dhubri. The AIUDF's decision not to contest from any other seat in the Brahmaputra Valley helped the Congress retain the Nagaon seat. In the final outcome, the BJP alliance won in Dibrugarh, Lakhimpur, Tezpur, Koliabor, Guwahati, Barpeta, Darrang-Udalguri, Silchar, Karimganj, Diphu, and Kokrajhar, while the Congress won in Dhubri, Nagaon, and Jorhat. The AIUDF failed to win any seat this time. The Lok Sabha polls have proved to be a big setback to the AIUDF, and it is now facing a bleak future. However, it still has the capacity to split the religious minority vote in the 2026 Assembly polls.

With Gaurav Gogoi, son of former Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, wresting the Jorhat Parliamentary seat against all odds, the Congress is upbeat about doing well in the Upper Assam region. Of course, here the contribution of the Opposition alliance parties like Raijor Dal, Asom Jatiya Parishad (AJP), and the Left parties has to be acknowledged. The Congress is banking on the discontent among ethnic groups over issues like the failure of the BJP to accord ST status as promised, reneging on the assurance of Constitutional safeguards, the growing assertion of Hindutva models, and also banking on its traditional network in the tea garden belt to woo back the tea voters to its fold. However, for the Congress, it is a stiff climb ahead, considering the fact that the ruling BJP alliance is putting its best foot forward to make inroads among the masses with sops galore for all sections of society. With the government taking loans right and left to meet its financial obligations on the social and infrastructural front, the ruling alliance is building up a massive band of beneficiaries whom it considers to be potential voters. Even as economists and concerned quarters warn of the rapidly growing loan burden (estimated at over Rs1.15 lakh crore at last count), Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma flashes his government's credit rating to quash such concerns. However, it must be admitted that Assam has never witnessed such a massive infrastructure upgrade in terms of roads, bridges, medical colleges, and hospitals in the last nine years of BJP rule since the British imperial rulers invested over Rs 10 million in the early part of the 20th century to build roads and railways to link the tea gardens and industrial belt of up- per Assam with the outside world. Together with its social engineering of Hindutva and ethnic identity equations, the ruling BJP is definitely on a strong wicket.

Efforts to put together a non-BJP Opposition front consisting of the Congress, Akhil Gogoi's Raijor Dal, Lurinjyoti Gogoi-led Asom Jatiya Parishad, and the Left parties received a setback during the last bye-elections when the Congress, at the eleventh hour, decided to field its own candidates from Behali, despite the alliance's decision to field a CPI-ML candidate. Lok Sabha MP Gaurav Gogoi's insistence on fielding a Congress candidate from Behali, despite State party president Bhupen Borah's support for the CPI-ML candidate, evoked strong resentment and also brought to the fore differences among the top Congress leadership. With the Congress making claims for a major share of the upcoming Assembly seats in 2026, bargaining and posturing on seat distribution have already started among the proposed Opposition front. Under the circumstances, the coming Panchayat elections may offer another opportunity for the Opposition to fight the ruling BJP alliance unitedly.

Speaking of political alliances, the ruling BJP's alliance with the Asom Gana Parishad and the Bodoland People's Party Liberal (BPPL) is also not all that rosy. With the BJP asserting its claim over seats contested by the AGP in aggressive tactics on its turf and girding up to face the coming litmus test. For Pramod Boro's BPPL, the coming BTC polls will again be a challenge to assert its supremacy over Hagrama Mohilary's BPF, even as the parties fight independently in the polls.

With a crucial year ahead before the Assembly polls in 2026, the Panchayat polls will serve as a curtain raiser for the prospects of the contending parties, and in many cases, the Panchayat results will serve as the bargaining points for seat adjustment and distribution among the ruling and Opposition alliances in the State.

By Prasanta J Baruah