The BJP victory in Assam did not come as a surprise—at least not to anyone in the Northeast. The party returned with 82 seats in the Assembly of 126, giving it a majority on its own. Its allies in the North East Democratic Alliance, Asom Gana Parishad and Bodoland People’s Front, won 10 seats each.
Many factors ensured this. The foremost is the persona of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, and his well-calculated and calibrated populist agenda whipping up and capitalising on the inherent Assamese demographic anxiety of being overwhelmed by Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh. Whether this proves to be a boon or a bane for the state and the region in the long run is a matter of anticipation.
Equally important is the fact that dislodging a party in power, especially if it is also in power in New Delhi, has never been easy in the Northeast. The region today suffers from a psychology of living on Delhi’s charity, therefore seeing themselves safer on the right side of the powers that be at the Centre. The BJP’s victory was also helped by some high-profile, pre-election defections—engineered or otherwise—from its major rival, the Congress.
The Congress was left licking its wounds, garnering just 19 seats, down 10 seats from its share in the last election. Even its flag-bearer, Gaurav Gogoi, lost in his home constituency Jorhat.
While it does seem like a decimation of the Congress in the state, a little rethink is called for. The picture is quite different in terms of vote share. While the BJP won 37.81 percent of the votes polled, the Congress received 29.84 percent. Though nobody can argue with the decisive nature of BJP’s win, in terms of the support base, the margin is not as great as the seat numbers make it seem.
The debate on the pros and cons of the first-past-the-post electoral system is for another time. What everyone needs to keep in sight at this moment is that though victors have all the right to celebrate their victory, they also need to display some humility in the knowledge that citizens on the opposite end of the political spectrum number almost as many as those who supported them.
The Assam victory is important for the BJP and its prospect in the Northeast. The party’s upbeat mood is also bolstered tremendously by its victory in West Bengal. For the Northeast, Kolkata offers an important junction parallel to Guwahati for connectivity to the rest of the country.
So whatever happens in Bengal has always had very profound impact on the Northeast as well. This has been so from the colonial days. Indeed, when the British annexed Assam in 1826, it was made an extension of Bengal. Likewise, Curzon’s partition of Bengal and subsequent reunification had a great bearing on the politics and psychology of ordinary people in the Northeast. Not the least, most first-generation, western-educated pioneers from the region acquired their degrees from Calcutta and Dhaka universities, making this connection even deeper-rooted.
How, then, would the BJP victory in Assam and West Bengal pan out in the rest of the Northeast is a question all observers of politics in the region would be asking. The first thing to remember is that of the region’s seven states—excluding Sikkim, which is more in West Bengal’s orbit—the four states of Assam, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur are BJP-ruled today.
The remaining three, which are core Christian states—Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland—are ruled by regional parties allied with the BJP. Those alliances are not for any ideological affinity, but are driven by transactional considerations of aligning with the power corridors in Delhi. This profile of the major political equations in the region is unlikely to change. What the BJP victory in Assam and West Bengal has probably done is to ensure this equation remains secure and intact.
This said, there are also local issues unique to each state that can change the colours of politics in them. The case of Manipur would be the most urgent. With election in the state due in less than a year, in February 2027, the ongoing ethnic crisis in the state can make or mar the prospect of any political party.
This May 3, the violent conflict between the majority Meiteis and Kuki-Zo groups of tribes, which has claimed over 260 lives and displaced tens of thousands, completed three years. But there is still no end in sight. The conflict has in fact acquired a new dimension, with an underlying land friction between Kukis and Nagas turning violent, and threatening to be even more sustained and irresolvable. The divisions between the state’s three major communities will understandably complicate the electoral strategies of all parties.
There are also issues such as a demand for drawing up a National Register of Citizens, as in Assam, to sort out illegal immigrants from the voters list before elections—the success or failure to comply with which can alter the political fortunes of parties. The fortune of the ruling BJP in the state, which has been trying to negotiate on these issues, will depend on its measure of success in this negotiation.
Elections in the other northeastern states are still two to three years away, so the urgency is still missing. But by and large, because the BJP will remain in power at the Centre when these elections happen, together with its recent victories in Assam and West Bengal, should give the party a head-start in the races.
It must be kept in mind that political stability of the region—made up of border-states vulnerable to insurgency—can be dramatically altered overnight. With the perception that foreign powers, particularly China and the US, have an interest in the current troubles in Myanmar, New Delhi’s policies for the region can also shift radically, unsettling these fragile political equations.
The central government recently announced that it was set to “erase” insurgency in the Northeast by 2029. As has often happened in the past, this could result in the reading of insurgency as merely a law-and-order problem, and not also a social issue, orienting operations towards a military solution. Depending on the approach taken, the region’s political equations can also take a swift turn.
Pradip Phanjoubam | Editor, Imphal Review of Arts and Politics
(Views are personal)
(phanjoubam@gmail.com)
