Assam Polls 2016: Can Sonowal & Himanta Biswa Sarma be the game-changer for BJP?, BJP , Assam assembly polls, Assam assembly election 2016, Assam, Sarbananda Sonowal, All India United Democratic Front , Badruddin Ajmal
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- Category: Assam Political News
- Last Updated: Monday, 28 December 2015 18:31
Assam Polls 2016: Can Sonowal & Himanta Biswa Sarma be the game-changer for BJP?, BJP , Assam assembly polls, Assam assembly election 2016, Assam, Sarbananda Sonowal, All India United Democratic Front , Badruddin Ajmal
The key to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s game plan for victory in Assam’s legislative elections in the spring of 2016 rests essentially on two very different figures: Sarbananda Sonowal, the Youth Affairs and Sports Minister at the Centre, who is the new President of the BJP in Assam, and Himanta Biswa Sarma, a long-time Congress leader who knows the in and outs of Congress, local politics as well as government systems as few others.
Facing them is Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi of Congress, battling an anti-incumbency factor (having won three straight elections) and an array of party veterans. The Asom Gana Parishad of former Chief Minister Prafulla Mahanta is barely regarded as a major contender but two major parties which are regarded as crucial to either side’s success or failure are Badruddin Ajmal’s All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) and the Bodoland Peoples Party which has held power in the Bodoland Territorial Council in Western Assam for a decade. While there are efforts by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, riding on his recent success, to stitch the first three into an electoral alliance and thus unitedly dent the BJP’s chances, the Bodoland party has not made up its mind, having shared power with the Congress on earlier occasions.
Assam is a complex vortex of numerous competing ethnicities, linguistic and political groups with many large minority groups but few majorities. Thus, while Hindus continue to be the overall majority, the 2011 Census report said that Muslims comprised 34.2 percent of the overall population. Hindu groups are subdivided into many factions spread over diverse geographical areas and ethnic loyalties.
This is where the Sonowal-Sarma combination comes into play: Sonowal is a shrewd organizer of student politics and popular protests through his earlier innings in the influential All Assam Students Union and as an MP from the Asom Gana Parishad. He has enviable networks among youth groups but held his first non-organizational post when he was appointed to Prime Minister Narenda Modi’s Council of Ministers last year.
That time, the BJP was on a high not just nationally but also in Assam, having captured not less than seven of 14 Parliamentary seats in the state, its best tally ever, crushing Congress heavyweights such as Pawan Singh Ghatowar and BK Handique, both Central ministers.
After many months of speculation, Sarma finally walked over to the BJP and is now marshalling the anti-Congress forces as its chief campaigner. He clarified one of the planks of his strategy, that of dividing the Congress: “The state government is suffering from anti-incumbency and we will have to bring in (Congress) people who are free of anti-incumbency. We cannot risk transferring of anti-incumbency from Congress to BJP.” The former right-hand man and his right-wing allies are shaking the once-apparently unassailable Congress bastion.