Assam polls: BJP’s chances depend on split in the Muslim vote

Looking back, one finds several very close similarities between the 1985 assembly election and the just-concluded one.

Prime minister of India Narendra Modi , former chief minister of Assam and Assom Gana Parishad (AGP) candidate of Baharampur constituency and Angurlata Deka BJP candidate of Batarduwa constituency wave toward a crowd in an election rally.

Elections in Assam had never been as exciting as it was this time. While it was one of the most peaceful elections in the state in the past three decades or more, old-timers compare it with the 1985 elections, the one that was held within four months of the Assam Accord, one that also saw the newly-formed Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) capture power within just two months of its birth.

Looking back, one finds several very close similarities between the 1985 assembly election and the just-concluded one. First and foremost, both were by and large fought on the same issue – of Bangladeshi infiltration. Secondly, the voters were sharply divided on both occasions, one side out and out against the infiltrators and their alleged protection, the other side – Congress and the break-away United Minorities Front of Assam (UMFA) splitting the Congress vote-base vertically into two equal parts. The third most significant aspect common to both was the heavy turn-out of voters; in 1985, the voter turn-out was 79.21 per cent, this time it worked out to 84.72 per cent.

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But then there was one very significant difference between 1985 (and for that matter all previous elections) and 2016; this was the first time that a huge campaign was launched to polarize the voters on religious or communal lines. Muslims of migrant origin did move away from the Congress out of fear of the AGP in 1985, but then that time Bengali Hindus of migrant origin too were with them in the UMFA. In 2006, after Badruddin Ajmal floated the United Democratic Front (later AIUDF), it were only the Muslims who shifted towards him. Majority of the Bengali Hindus had by then got closer to the slowly rising BJP.

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This time, however, the BJP for the first time also caught the imagination of the Assamese and other indigenous communities. While it was in 2014 that the Assamese and other indigenous communities first voted in large numbers for the BJP, primarily because of the Modi wave and certain specific promises made in relation to Assam, in 2016 the BJP also got the AGP under its umbrella in order to consolidate its position against the Congress.

The BJP also tried to pick up two things from the Congress in the just-concluded election. One, it got Tarun Gogoi’s once most-trusted lieutenant Himanta Biswa Sarma into the party (Sarma is said to be the main architect of three successive Congress victories since 2001), and two – it borrowed from Gogoi his famous “Who is Badruddin?” question of 2006 that had helped the Congress get maximum Assamese votes in two successive elections.

But what the BJP should not imagine is that the migrant Muslims had split their votes between the Congress and AIUDF. If that has really occurred, then it will be a smooth sailing for the BJP. If not, then it is likely to be a photo finish, where both Congress and the BJP-led alliance have equal chances of forming the next government.

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Assam Assembly Elections 2016