Assam is heading towards a third consecutive term for the BJP-led NDA government with the Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma leading the party to its best-ever electoral performance since it unseated Congress to occupy power for the first time in the northeastern state in 2016.
Riding on the BJP’s electoral dominance, visible in the party winning 65 seats and leading in 17 others, the NDA was set to cross the 100 mark in the 126-member assembly. Other NDA allies too were doing well -- Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) won 7 seats and was leading in 3 more, and the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) won 5 and was leading in the same number of other constituencies, as per the Election Commission of India (ECI).
Meanwhile, the Congress won 5 constituencies and was ahead in 14 more, down from 29 it secured in 2021 state polls. The biggest upset for Congress was it’s decision to field Gaurav Gogoi, an MP from the state, in the state politics. He lost the Jorhat assembly constituency to BJP’s Hitendra Nath Goswami, who polled 69,439 votes, winning by a margin of 23,182 votes.
Consolidation of Hindu votes
Even before the results for the entire 126 seats were declared by the ECI on Monday evening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who campaigned extensively in the state, stated that Assam blesses BJP-NDA once again and thanked “sisters and brothers of Assam for the resounding mandate”.
“BJP-NDA’s win in Assam illustrates unwavering support for NDA’s emphasis on development, bringing positive change in people’s lives,” Modi posted on social media.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma established a formidable lead of 89,434 votes over his nearest Congress rival Bidisha Neog in his traditional stronghold of Jalukbari constituency. But for facing defeat in his electoral debut in 1996, Sarma, the tallest BJP leader of northeast, has improved his winning streak from 2001, with his victory margin going up in each poll, achieving a record winning margin of 1,01,000 in 2021.
Sarma, the Hindutva mascot of the northeastern states, joined in celebrations along with his party leaders and workers and said, “As long as Sun and Moon exist, India will remain Hindu nation”. He also continued his rant against Bangladeshi Muslims and vowed to fight their “aggression”.
The party has also increased its vote share to 38.17 per cent, which may go up as the counting was still on, if compared with 2024 Lok sabha and 2021 assembly elections. It got 37.43 per cent in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and 33.21 per cent vote share in last assembly polls, the ECI data reveal. The positive swing in vote share is being referenced to extreme consolidation of the Hindu vote behind the BJP.
The political success is attributed to Sarma’s hardline decisive leadership, his connect with people, and the BJP aggressively nurturing cultural polarisation through alliance with regional parties like AGP and BPF and re-drawing of boundaries through 2023 delimitation that structurally gave advantage to the indigenous population over migrant-origin minority groups. This added to the identity and infiltrator narrative the party has been pursuing throughout its decade-long regime.
Delimitation effect
The BJP is said to have fared well in the carefully crafted realigned seats. Like, BJP candidate Jiban Gogoi, who jumped into the fray for the first time, won the newly created Sissibargaon constituency by a margin of 40,593 votes, having polled 75,758 votes in the contest against his nearest rival Dulal Chandra Boruah of the Raijor Dal, who managed 35,165 votes. Sissibargaon seat in Dhemaji district was created after the 2023 delimitation exercise.
Ahead of ECI’s delimitation exercise, the Assam NDA government in 2022 clubbed four newly created districts back into their parent districts -- such as Hojai into Nagaon and Biswanath into Sonitpur -- to check fragmentation of certain voter base the state wanted to protect, political observers stated.
Against this backdrop, the Opposition failed to pose a formidable challenge, especially as it could not consolidate minority Muslim votes with Congress deciding to distance itself from the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), a prominent regional political party founded by Maulana Badruddin Ajmal. As a result, the Congress led a separate opposition bloc of Raijor Dal, Assam Jatiya Parishad, and CPI(M) -- dividing votes which at many places turned out to be beneficial to the NDA candidates.
AIUDF, which faced the maximum heat of the delimitation of constituencies, registered a vote share of just 5.41 per cent with one win and leading in another seat. Meanwhile, its vote share was 9.29 per cent, accumulated through victories over 16 seats. The Congress’ vote share is largely stable, from 29.67 per cent in 2021 after winning 29 seats to 29.51 per cent in 2026.
The Congress’ 18 of 19 Muslim candidates were leading in the electoral battle.
Assam too saw a historic 85.91 per cent voter turnout, amplified due to record participation of 86.5 per cent women, which BJP has been cultivating, including by making a botched attempt to bring in constitutional amendment bills to offer reservation for women in parliament on the basis of 2011 census.
Published on May 4, 2026