Assam: Lotus blooms by the Brahmaputra

Assam had never witnessed polarization of votes as seen this time.

Assam BJP president Sarbananda Sonowal is happy his calculations have been upset. The former AGP leader who joined BJP in 2011 had predicted five to six seats for the BJP in Assam. The party has exceeded his expectations.

The signals were clear right after counting began, when BJP established a lead in 7 of the 14 Lok Sabha constituencies.

Sonowal feels hard work has beeen rewarded in compound interest. “It was definitely fruit of hard labour,” said Sonowal, who trounced powerful Congress leader Ranee Narah in Lakhimpur. “It was the Modi magic every party worker worked hard around overtime, yielding such good result,” he said. He said he could not understand why BJP could not retain Silchar, where sitting MP Kabindra Purkayastha was defeated.

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The BJP, had won four seats — Guwahati, Nagaon, Mangaldoi and Silchar — in 2009 after an alliance with the AGP. This time it decided to contest alone. “Our grassroot workers knew the pulse of people; so they opposed tying up with AGP, and it paid dividends,” said Sonowal. It was Modi’s several trips to Assam that caused the surge, he added.

For the BJP it was a risk, especially when AGP, everybody feared, might slice away a sizeable chunk of anti-Congress votes. “But our assessment indicated people would not waste votes by putting it with any losing party,” said BJP spokesman Adip Kumar Phukan.

Assam had never witnessed polarization of votes as seen this time.

Sonowal, as AGP Lok Sabha member in 2005, had got the controversial IMDT Act scrapped by the Supreme Court (he filed a PIL in his capacity as All Assam Students’ Union president in 1998), his joining the BJP gave the message to people that BJP could do better than AGP on the Bangladeshi infiltration front. “Yes, it is a fact that a sizeable section of voters voted for BJP,” said AGP president and former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta.

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“Moreover, majority in the 18-25 age-group voted enthusiastically for a change at the Centre.”

While rise of the BJP in Assam is significant, it is equally interesting to note AIUDF, a party born in the aftermath of the Supreme Court scrapping Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act in 2005, has also risen from one seat in 2009 to three this time.

Thus, the polarization was anti-migrant BJP against pro-migrant AIUDF. This left little space for the Congress and AGP.