Assam and espe­cially people in Upper Assam are in need of altern­at­ive job aven­ues :::: Muslims may change Polit­ical Roadmap

 Like the rest of north east India, Assam was a Con­gress ­bas­tion. Tarun Gogoi had been the chief min­is­ter for 15 years between 2001 and 2016. His son Gaurav Gogoi is in the scene. 

He is state Con­gress chief and also the trus­ted man of Rahul Gandhi – but only these are not enough for Con­gress to win the polls. 

Himanta and one-time mentor Congress veteran Late Tarun Gogoi (Gaurav's dad) 

“The gen­eral talk in Assam these days is the BJP will come back. But two things are being debated; first the num­ber of seats and secondly, whether or not Nar­en­dra Modi sur­prises every­one and does not make Himanta chief min­is­ter again,” says Guwa­hati-based Biren Gos­wami, a stu­dent.  

He also adds: “The state of Assam and espe­cially people in Upper Assam are des­per­ately in need of altern­at­ive job aven­ues for young people and good health centres”. Many actu­ally agree with him.

Assam's Mar­gher­ita is a fam­ous spot for coal and Doom Dooma is well known for tea gar­dens and tea busi­ness. Dig­boi also in Upper Assam is world fam­ous for oil. Moreover, Dibrugarh and Tin­sukia are two com­mer­cial hubs. But des­pite big talks of the BJP about the Double Engine gov­ern­ments; these three pock­ets in Upper Assam have issues vis-a-vis devel­op­ment. 

There is a crisis of drink­ing water, grow­ing job­lessness and lack of industrial units. 

Of course, Assam has seen sev­eral land­mark infra and devel­op­mental projects under BJP in the last dec­ade includ­ing the air­port in Guwa­hati, a num­ber of good roads and major bridges. 

But anti-incum­bency is not being spoken much and all eyes are on the vot­ing day – on how exactly they decide the fate of BJP, Con­gress and also AIUDF and can­did­ates from other smal­ler parties.

Blogger in Dibrugarh (Upper Assam/ second capital) 

In elect­oral sense; in Assam -- the nat­ive versus out­sider nar­rat­ive has always car­ried sharp con­sequences. As the state heads into another round of polls, lin­guistic iden­tity— par­tic­u­larly the grow­ing vis­ib­il­ity of the Bho­jpurispeak­ing com­munity—has moved from the mar­gins to the centre of polit­ical con­test­a­tion.

Polit­ic­ally the state is often divided into three cat­egor­ies. The Barak val­ley – Bengali dom­in­ated and Lower Assam and Upper Assam.

People in Upper Assam and Barak (with sub­stan­tial Bengali Muslim pop­u­la­tion) have always felt neg­lected and thus remained anguished.  

The Bho­jpuri issue is not new. Memor­ies still linger of 2003, when Bihari can­did­ates appear­ing for rail­way recruit­ment exams were attacked in Assam dur­ing Nit­ish by former MP and a medico Rajdeep Roy. “But Dr Roy's per­form­ance as MP was hardly sat­is­fact­ory as he did not have asso­ci­ation with ground level work­ers and com­mon people,” says a Silchar res­id­ent Bapi Sen also adding, “But the Con­gress is not in a pos­i­tion to take the fight to the enemy camp”.

Raja Chow­dhury, a local trader says: “BJP's can­did­ate may not be accept­able to all… But voters will ulti­mately vote for Lotus sym­bol; because they do not have a bet­ter choice to make”.

Silchar was earlier a Con­gress bas­tion under Late San­tosh Mohan Dev and later his daugh­ter Sush­mita Dev. Ms Sush­mita is now a Tri­n­amool leader and the both the Congress and the TMC lack organisational strength in Assam.  

Illegal Migration

Census data only sharpens the debate. Assam's Muslim pop­u­la­tion rose to 34.22% in 2011, a jump of over four per­cent­age points from 2001. Dis­trict-level spikes in Dar­rang, Kam­rup, Nal­bari, and Bar­peta raised uncom­fort­able ques­tions—espe­cially when sim­ilar growth is vis­ible far from the inter­na­tional bor­der. Former Home Min­is­ter P. Chidam­baram of Con­gress him­self once acknow­ledged illegal immig­ra­tion as a “major issue”. 

That admis­sion, bur­ied in polit­ical noise, cap­tures Assam's endur­ing para­dox. 

The Modi factor remains ambas­sador for the North­east con­tinue to rein­force BJP's nar­rat­ive. But there are regional dis­par­it­ies that still can cre­ate open­ings for Con­gress and AIUDF to cap­it­al­ize on. But AIUDF seems to have been mar­gin­al­ised this year. Most Muslim voters indic­ate their pref­er­ence for Con­gress at the cost of AIUDF. But appar­ently; yet the grand old party has lately lost the per­cep­tion battle.

The Con­gress has to Get Back the Rhythm

It has to be polit­ic­ally agile. The grand old party has to lever­age some of their strengths. Gaurav Gogoi's 2024 Jorhat Lok Sabha vic­tory sent ripples across Assam, show­ing the Con­gress should not be con­sidered pushover.  

There are a few good strategies at hand – the Minor­ity out­reach and con­stitu­ency-level works. They need to pre­pare a good mani­festo and also defeat a per­cep­tion that the party is inap­pro­pri­ately pro-Muslim.

Muslim May Change Polit­ical Roadmap  

In a sig­ni­fic­ant devel­op­ment in Barak Val­ley polit­ics; sit­ting MLA from Sonai assembly seg­ment (in the out­skirts of Silchar) Karim Uddin Barb­huiya resigned from the primary mem­ber­ship of the All India United Demo­cratic Front (AIUDF). 

In his resig­na­tion let­ter addressed to AIUDF pres­id­ent Bad­rud­din Ajmal, Barb­huiya, argued that the Muslim com­munity must reas­sess its polit­ical strategy and engage more prag­mat­ic­ally with ‘main­stream power struc­tures'.

Refer­ring to the roughly 22 con­stitu­en­cies that now have a sub­stan­tial Muslim voter base in Assam, he said restrict­ing polit­ical par­ti­cip­a­tion to a few com­munity-cent­ric plat­forms would not ensure mean­ing­ful rep­res­ent­a­tion or influ­ence. 

“In a demo­cracy, no com­munity can afford to isol­ate itself polit­ic­ally. If Muslims con­tinue to remain con­fined within a nar­row polit­ical frame­work, their voice and aspir­a­tions may not find effect­ive space,” he observed.  

About polit­ics in Assam – one may say elec­tions in the state, like the rest of India, hinge on the will and vigil­ance of the people. In 2026 too, voters will once again hold the ulti­mate power, press­ing the EVM.

But polit­ics is more than just the con­science, it's a lot about nar­rat­ives and per­cep­tion.

Till Septem­ber-Octo­ber 2025, every­one thought Con­gress is in a strik­ing dis­tance to power in Assam. In more ways than one, the BJP looked on defens­ive and the chief min­is­ter Himanta Biswa Sarma looked clue­less how to handle the 10-year-old anti-incumbency.  

In 2025, the mys­ter­i­ous death of pop­u­lar singer Zubeen Garg added more pres­sure on the chief min­is­ter. But within weeks, the BJP lead­er­ship took cor­rect­ive steps and on the other hand, the Con­gress indulged in numer­ous mis­takes. 

In the ulti­mate by March 2026 as the poll mood has set in; two emin­ent Con­gress lead­ers Bhu­pen Borah and Pra­dyut Bordoloi quit Con­gress and would be now con­test­ing assembly elec­tions on BJP tick­ets. Borah will con­test from Bih­puria and former MP Pra­dyut Bordoloi from pres­ti­gi­ous Dis­pur assembly seg­ment.

sketch/social media 

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