Rahul, booked by Assam police, ups the ante, directs party to defeat CM Himanta Biswa Sarma in 2026 Assembly polls

Guwahati: Faced with hostilities and disruptions during his week-long Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Assam, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has instructed leaders of the state unit to ensure a win for the party in the 2026 assembly elections.

Gandhi is also getting party’s key strategist Sunil Kanugolu to set up a unit. Party sources said the strategy will be put to test in the upcoming Sabha elections. “He has held meetings with state leaders where they have been asked to put up an united face. The Assam unit has also been asked to use the platform of the Yatra to launch their campaign — ‘Himanta is the most corrupt CM’ is sticking. Their job will now be to build on it,” a senior party leader said.

The Congress is planning to send in teams to do surveys, stitch alliances and come up with a strategy soon. Surveys will initially look at the demographic details of the each of the districts and gauge the winnability of the party in Assam. 

Sources said Gandhi has also instructed state in-charge Jitender Singh Alwar to work on alliances in the state and strategise on the messaging meant for targeted segments and communities — tribals, Ahoms, Muslims etc. 

“Gandhi is very clear — Congress will not have any alliance, tacit or not, with Badruddin Ajmal,” the leader quoted above said. The Congress has long called the Ajmal-led AIUDF “B-team” of the BJP, a bard that the BJP redirects to the Congress. 

Gandhi, during a press conference on the outskirts of Guwahati on Tuesday, said that Assam is now run from Delhi. “The idea that the culture, the language and it’s tradition is secondary and it should bow down to the culture of Nagpur is what we’re seeing here. If the chief minister says one thing, we know what will happen to him,” Gandhi said.  

The Congress has till now stitched an alliance with the United Opposition Forum, a coalition of 15 parties which has Asam Jatiya Parishad leader Lurin Gogoi as its general secretary. 

Local unit leaders said that the Yatra has re-energised the state unit, which had carried out a Yatra of its own last year while the Bharat Jodo Yatra was unfolding. The infighting among local leaders that whispers that some of them are close to Himanta have now been put to rest, a local leader said.

“The state PCC chief Bhupen Bora ended up with a bloody nose after an attack by BJP protesters, and neither he or Gaurav Gogoi have minced any words for the CM,” the local leader said.

The Congress was in power in the state from 2001 to 2016 with Tarun Gogoi as chief minister; in 2016 the BJP was voted to power for the first time with union minister Sarbananda Sonowal as the CM. The party was voted back to power in 2021, with Himanta at the helm, who was with the Congress till 2015 and was a key hand in the Gogoi dispensation.