A huge hoarding of ‘Akou ebar BJP sorkar’ (BJP government once more) greets visitors as they emerge from the Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport in Assam’s Guwahati. However, there’s little else giving away the fact that it’s election season here barring an odd party flag or empty booth. The road to the city is festooned with more welcome messages, flags and posters for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah during one of their numerous visits to inaugurate some project or lay the foundation stone for another — a hallmark of the BJP’s signature style ‘permanent campaign’. There’s a cartographic change, this time, though.

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The airport area now marks the western limits of Legislative Assembly Constituency 37, Jalukbari, the seat that has sent Himanta Biswa Sarma to the Assam Assembly without fail since 2001. The 2023 delimitation exercise has left the Chief Minister with a newer set of voters to woo. Some regions from the erstwhile Guwahati West constituency have been incorporated, some ceded to adjoining Assembly segments.

Places such as Agyathuri, Mandakata and Changsari on the north bank of the Brahmaputra in Guwahati are out; and areas such as Azara, Dharapur, and Garigaon, an old village of more than 14,000 residents, are in.

Mr. Sarma filed his nomination papers on the very first day, March 20, after a massive roadshow, his wife Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, son Nandil, and BJP’s Guwahati MP Bijuli Kalita Medhi in tow. “I first contested from Jalukbari in 1996 and lost. Since 2001, I have been winning continuously. Despite delimitation changes, I believe I will continue to receive the blessings of the people,” he said en route. Launching the second phase of the party’s Jana Ashirwad Yatra from his constituency three days later, the Chief Minister asked Jalukbari residents to bear with him given that he would be helming the campaign across the State.

With Mr. Sarma criss-crossing the State as campaigner-in-chief for the BJP-led alliance, the canvassing on home turf fell upon Ms. Sarma, who has been micromanaging things and touring the constituency extensively.

The Chief Minister is up against two other candidates, Bidisha Neog of the Congress and Dipika Das of the Bhumi Adhikar Party, contesting as an Independent. Ms. Neog, a grassroots worker who worked at Gauhati University, has struck a combative note, hitting out at the BJP workers for alleged violence at a bike rally in the Pandu area and petitioning the Election Commission to cancel Mr. Sarma’s candidature for “deliberate, wilful and corrupt non-disclosure and suppression of assets and liabilities, including assets situated outside India”.

A win for Mr. Sarma is, however, well-nigh a foregone conclusion. Seated beside the Shri Dol Gobindo Mandir in Garal Baruapara, Dharapur, Jugal Das, a teacher at the local lower primary school, and Girish Chandra Das, a retired bank officer, beam with pride at the prospect of the Chief Minister representing them in the Assembly. They claim he will cast his vote at a school in their area.

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Grooming Garigaon

Messrs Das are already sold on the idea of ‘Himanta Biswa Sarma, MLA, Jalukbari’, but the challenge for the BJP is to ensure healthy numbers in order to match or better the CM’s six-figure margin from 2021. This is where Garigaon comes into play. Part of the peri-urban expansion of Guwahati, Garigaon and its fringes count caste Hindu Assamese and Bengali-origin Muslims among residents but it’s khilonjia or tholuwa (‘indigenous’) Muslims who make up the majority.

“We are older than the Ahoms [who came to Assam in the medieval times and ruled for almost 600 years]. There’s a mazar (shrine) of a Sufi saint in Garigaon that dates back to 700 AD,” claims Hukum Shan Ali Boxi, the local councillor who was aligned with the Assam Jatiya Parishad earlier but is now firmly with the ruling party.

The party machinery has been put to work, he says. Membership has swelled in recent months and the area is witness to daily door-to-door campaigns and corner meets ahead of polling day, April 9. The Chief Minister’s wife addressed a sizeable gathering at the local Idgah ground on April 3 besides visiting a nearby namghar [a community prayer hall for followers of Vaishnavite saint Srimanta Sankardeva].

There are visible changes in Garigaon since the 2023 delimitation: paved roads with street lights lined alongside. “The local youth clubs, graveyard and madrasa have received funds too,” says Taher Ali, who runs a corner shop. “Many women are beneficiaries of the Orunodoi monthly financial assistance scheme,” he adds.

Mr. Boxi says the development work is translating into votes: “The party got more than 1,000 votes from the area in the 2024 Lok Sabha election as against only 200-odd votes earlier.”

Iman Ali, in his seventies and a new member of the BJP Bishwabidyalaya Mandal Minority Morcha, concedes some old loyalists may still vote for the Congress. “We should deem ourselves fortunate that we now have the opportunity to elect our own Chief Minister. Mama [as Mr. Sarma is popularly called] is winning anyway. It’s a question of whether we join him or stay on the sidelines,” he says.

Published – April 07, 2026 12:09 pm IST

You were an adviser to the regional party Raijor Dal during its early days before dissociating yourself. Why then did you issue appeals for the Opposition to come together this Assembly election?

I used to be adviser but Akhil Gogoi [Raijor Dal chief] refused to have any truck with the Congress, which allied with the AIUDF and other parties in the previous election. Since I was supporting the alliance, I felt it unethical to remain with Akhil Gogoi and resigned.

Things have changed a lot since then. This time, I had this notion of an Opposition unity quite early. We had an all-Assam citizens’ convention in Guwahati last year and told political parties that they could draw strength from each other and the electorate is much more likely to support such an alliance than individual parties. To our delight they agreed, but it took a pretty long time. They are holding joint campaign meetings everywhere now.

How are the new regional parties different from their 1980s predecessor, Asom Gana Parishad?

The AGP got completely exposed during the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act agitation. Its MP Biren Baishya made a fiery speech against the Act in Rajya Sabha but [later] raised his hand in support. The party remained with the BJP but said they would continue to struggle against the CAA. It has become law and apparently they are still against it. The All Assam Students’ Union also lost most of its clout due to a similar position.

Has the political discourse today has touched a new low? We have never heard the pejorative term ‘Miya’ being bandied about so freely in the past as now.

During the Assam Movement, some diehard supporters used the word among themselves. But it was never a part of the public rhetoric. The Chief Minister [Himanta Biswa Sarma] goes on saying I am not going to allow the ‘Miyas’ to rest and I shall harass them as much as I can, this is why I became CM. Imagine a Chief Minister saying something like this.

As part of a group of concerned citizens, you moved the courts over the alleged hate speeches. The next High Court hearing is scheduled for April 21.

Since this is the incumbent Chief Minister, the court should have said something about it. Some steps should have been taken to restrain him in the meantime. The hearing has been postponed to a very safe date.

There hasn’t been much forward movement since the 2019 National Register of Citizens excluded 19.06 lakh people…

This is begging for an answer for a long time. It’s been seven years. Neither has the government accepted it nor rejected it on some rational ground. It was NRC State Coordinator Prateek Hajela’s brainchild, how to ensure that real citizens find entry by considering the legacy data. They were so strict that even natives had to suffer a lot. My own citizenship was confirmed after several visits to the NRC centre. The NRC is sound. There is no evidence of corruption, mismanagement. The BJP says there are lakhs and lakhs of Bangladeshis in the NRC and they are going to correct it. They should bring evidence.

The citizenship issue raises the question, who is an indigenous Assamese that Clause 6 of the Assam Accord seeks Constitutional protections for?

That is a riddle I have not been able to solve. There is a sense among people that some are more native, others are not, but it’s a question of citizenship. There is scope for migrants from other States to come and settle here. Are they indigenous? No. It is a very complicated term and concept. It cannot be applied in legal terms.

You facilitated talks between the Government of India and ULFA over 15 years ago. To all intents and purposes, has militancy run its course?

I remember when I was studying in Delhi in 1959-60. There were students from Andhra Pradesh, Punjab in the hostel… most of these States were as poor as Assam, but they became far more developed and richer. Assam does have a grievance against the Centre and I share it too. Given this background, extremist regionalism does rear its head from time to time. But you have to be callow to think short-term violence brings results… it never does. People bore the brunt of it. They may not take kindly to this kind of violence as they once used to.