In Assam’s Muslim-majority Samaguri seat, CM Himanta sees a larger message in BJP win

Before Rakibul’s long tenure as MLA there, his father Nurul Hussain – also a Congress leader – had represented the seat for two terms in the 1980s and 1990s. This time, the Congress had fielded Rakibul’s son, Tanzil, from there and Rakibul had himself led the campaign.

Speaking to party members at the BJP state headquarters on Sunday evening, Sarma said Samaguri was a “difficult” constituency for the party and that he had initially not considered it a winnable one. However, he said that the party’s win from another Muslim-majority constituency – Karimganj – in the Lok Sabha elections had opened up its path among minority voters.

Saying that Karimganj had been considered an “impossible constituency”, he said, “Earlier, it would be said that the BJP won because of vote splitting between Congress and AIUDF. But in Karimganj, we won when AIUDF was not able to win any votes. We won with every religion’s votes… The victory in Samaguri is an extension of our victory in Karimganj… 65-75% of voters are from the religious minority, and the winning candidate is a person from the majority community.”

He said the BJP won votes from Muslim voters with a policy of “appeasement to none, justice for all”.

“Our difference with Congress is that they seek to appease one particular section by constituting things like the Sachar committee. They seek to appease one particular section… In the middle of this (BJP’s win in Samaguri), the Congress may say that the BJP is seeking minority votes… But the BJP has also done evictions in Kachutuli… In the middle of this, Assam’s 25,000 minority girls have also become beneficiaries of the Nijut Moina scheme. This policy is also slowly being accepted by Assam’s minority people and we are all sure that this is how Assam’s politics will move forward,” he said.

Kachutuli, a Bengali-Muslim village, had seen an eviction drive in September that had turned violent and resulted in the death of two residents.

In the bypolls to five seats in Assam, the BJP had contested in three and won all of them – Diplu Ranjan Sarmah in Samaguri, Diganta Ghatowal in Behali, and Nihar Ranjan Das in Dholai. Its allies won the two other seats – Diptimayee Choudhury of the Asom Gana Parishad won in Bongaigaon seat and Nirmal Kumar Brahma from the United People’s Party Liberal won Sidli.