What Went Right For The ‘Right’ In Assam: Revisiting The Saffron Surge

Abstract

Beginning with 10 seats in 1991 and going down to mere 5 seats in the 2011 assembly elections to forming the Government in 2016 and again winning a second term in 2021, the BJP has come a long way in Assam. A state which for a long time was a Congress bastion with very brief interruptions by the regional party Assam Gana Parishad (AGP) in 1985 and 1996 had never witnessed a consecutive non-congress government before. However, since the Parliamentary election of 2014, BJP has not just challenged but also captured the ‘political capital’ that the Congress party had built in the state over the years. The series of wins by the party in the state-parliamentary elections, assembly elections along with councils and local body elections have firmly established them as a force to reckon with. The rise of the BJP and its continued political victory has led to a shift in the political dynamics of the state. It has also impacted social alignments leading to new forms of political cleavages in the multi-ethnic landscape of Assam. In the present write-up, we will investigate and analyze a few factors which played a key role in bringing back the party to power in the state for the second term.