Behind BJP’s Assam win, lessons from Delhi, Bihar, a ‘dream alliance’

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From minimal engagement of the central leadership — Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah visited the state just three times each — to widespread consultations with the local leadership on ticket distribution and delegation of responsibility to a refusal to indulge in negative campaigning, the BJP studiously avoided the mistakes of Delhi and Bihar to manage its first toehold in the Northeast.

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Compare this to how Modi targeted AAP leadership during Delhi polls, and how the local BJP unit was brushed aside to foist Kiran Bedi as the CM candidate. In Bihar, central ministers had camped in the state throughout the elections to oversee the campaign, with Modi making 18 visits. In Assam, apart from Modi and Shah, Rajnath Singh visited twice, while Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj visited only once.

Modi also made his first overt religious pitch to Muslims in Assam, when he spoke about his visit to Saudi Arabia and his engagement with the World Sufi Forum.

Asked what the party did differently in the state, BJP general secretary Ram Madhav replied: “Everything.”

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“Congress kept trying to draw us into non-local issues like performance of the central government, etc. We stayed focused on development, Assamese identity and crackdown on illegal immigration. The onus of winning was on the state leadership. All our MPs went out on a limb to ensure best results in their respective constituencies… We forged a dream alliance, a rainbow coalition and did not succumb to the temptation of going it alone,” he said, adding that the swearing-in will be on “either May 24 or 25”.

“We did not make a single mistake,” Madhav said.

Sources said the campaign also saw a gradual drifting apart of the BJP and the RSS. The RSS, said highly placed sources, was against the alliance with the AGP and was so unhappy with candidate selection that it fielded independent candidates in seven seats, including one in Guwahati. This will be taken up internally, said a senior party leader. Some party insiders even said that the Assam win could change the Sangh-BJP dynamics, strengthening the hands of the Shah-Modi duo in party matters.