Assam Assembly Elections 2026 | NDA faces ideological odds between Ahoms and Bengali Muslims in Upper Assam

New Delhi: The electoral battle in Assam is once again treading on familiar grounds with regional identity taking the centre stage, and the fight against the “outsider” or “bohiragoto” playing out as the fulcrum of the political fight.

Assam CM and BJP strongman Himanta Biswa Sarma has started his campaign in the state by vowing to take on Bengali Muslims, pejoratively known as 'Miyas'. Himanta has sworn to make their lives difficult, urging people to hurt their businesses.

But at the heart of this political calculus lies another critical dynamic — the Ahoms, who have historically been the most influential ethno-cultural community in Assam’s political landscape. The Ahoms are yet to show any signs of a major consolidation towards the BJP or the ruling NDA despite the party's shrill pitch to stand for the “tholowa Axomiya” (native Assamese).

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, when the BJP was focussed on taking on Congress’s CM face Gaurav Gogoi, he secured the seat by a wide margin of 1.44 lakh votes. The silent support of the Ahom community, to which Gogoi and his father, former CM and Congress veteran Tarun Gogoi belonged, was palpable.

The Opposition appears determined to secure the support of the community that ruled over Assam for 600 years and has a sizable population of 13-14 lakh. They hold sway in Upper Assam, a region that more often than not determines who governs from Dispur. The alliance between Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi and Assam Jatiya Parishad's Lurin Gogoi, further bolstered by the entry of activist-politician Akhil Gogoi and his party, Raijor Dol, signals a consolidation of Ahom sentiment under an opposition umbrella — one that could prove deeply damaging for the BJP in Upper Assam.

While it might have been considered a sweep by the NDA in Upper Assam, now that is no longer the case. Senior journalist and political analyst Sushanta Talukdar says that the Asom Gana Parishad's (AGP) advantage is now dimmed by the Opposition Alliance.

“BJP is primarily banking on the seats from Eastern Assam districts where indigenous Assamese communities play a decisive role, with Ahoms being one of the major communities. They played on the apprehension of demographic change by migration of East Bengal origin Muslims to these areas with Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma spearheading the 'anti-Miya' campaign. With the Congress announcing an alliance with AJP, Raijor Dal, CPIM, CPIML and APHLC and reaching seat sharing to field single candidates of this united Opposition, new perception about opposition strength and unity has started shaping in the minds of voters. The voters will perceive this as a formidable opposition to the BJP led ruling alliance,” said Talukdar.

The ruling dispensation is not oblivious to this vulnerability. To offset this loss and in a bid to shore up its electoral arithmetic, the BJP’s principal ally, the Asom Gana Parishad, has fielded 13 candidates from the Bengali Muslim community across the 25 seats it is contesting as part of the NDA. The list, announced on Friday, comes even as Himanta continues his sustained rhetorical offensive against the same demographic, and his accusations that the Congress’s political identity is that it is a party that appeases the community.

The irony is hard to miss. The AGP was born from the crucible of the Assam Agitation, riding the fierce currents of “son of the soil” politics to power in 1989. That a party forged in the fires of nativist sentiment is now fielding candidates from the very community it once defined itself in opposition to speaks to the transactional nature of coalition politics and, perhaps, to the quiet erosion of its founding ideological moorings. The tension between electoral pragmatism and political posturing could not be starker.