(As Assam gears up for the Assembly polls, every Wednesday, Special Correspondent Sukrita Baruah decodes the electoral trends, political signals, and campaign moves shaping the contest.)
From parties looking to expand their ambitions to those struggling to retain their identities or trying to reverse their fortunes, to parties attempting to mark their arrival.
In Assam, the final weeks before the Election Commission (EC) announces the Assembly election schedule have brought seat-sharing talks among allies into sharp focus, along with the questions and anxieties that accompany them.
In both the ruling BJP-led NDA and the Opposition Congress-led coalition, the alliances appear to have been broadly agreed upon, but only “in principle”, with little formally finalised.
One of the key questions is, whether the Congress can cement and harness the relations it has sought to build with a set of regional outfits over the past few years.
Bhupen Borah factor
The Congress has already faced a setback in what may shape into a difficult run-up to the elections for a party seeking to reverse its 2021 Assembly election losses. The new challenge for the party has come in the wake of the rebellion of senior Assam Congress leader Bhupen Borah. Borah’s discontent and his move to resign from the party he has been associated with for 32 years is seen not only as a blow to the Congress but also to its prospective alliance, given that he had been its strongest advocate during his tenure as the state Congress chief between 2021 and 2025.
Congress-led alliance
The two main regional parties in the proposed Congress-led alliance are the Raijor Dal and Asom Jatiya Parishad (AJP), both formed in the aftermath of the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests ahead of the 2021 elections. The grand old party’s other allies include the CPI(M), CPI, CPI(ML)L and the All Party Hill Leaders’ Conference.
In the 2021 polls, the Raijor Dal and AJP had contested as part of a third front that proved costly for the Congress, which then led the “Mahajot” alliance with the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), a party with a primary support base among Bengali-origin Muslims.
Though the third front secured only one seat – with Raijor Dal leader Akhil Gogoi getting elected as an MLA – an analysis by The Indian Express showed that in 14 seats where the Congress lost to the BJP, the votes polled by the AJP or Raijor Dal, or at times both, exceeded the victory margin. Eleven of these seats were in Upper Assam. With both outfits led by the leaders from the Tai Ahom community and the Congress reduced to just five of the 42 seats across Upper and North Assam districts — regions dominated by ethnic Assamese voters — the latter recalibrated its strategy after the elections. It severed ties with the AIUDF and began pursuing an understanding with these regional forces.
Borah had taken the lead in initiating talks for the Congress’s proposed 2026 alliance as early as 2023. His efforts saw partial success, with the parties contesting together in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, but also faced setbacks — most notably during the November 2024 bypolls, when the Congress unilaterally announced a candidate for the Behali seat despite an alliance committee recommending a CPI(ML)L nominee, a proposal the Congress high command rejected.
Now, with the Congress attempting to arrest its electoral decline and regional parties seeking to expand their footprints, seat-sharing remains unresolved. Assam Congress president Gaurav Gogoi has announced that the party intends to contest 100 of the state’s 126 seats, leaving the remaining ones for allies.
On the other hand, Akhil Gogoi has said his party — buoyed by the recent induction of two Congress MLAs — has sought 15 constituencies, leaving limited space for other partners.
AJP spokesperson Ziaur Rahman said his party believes it should contest around 40 seats to secure roughly 6% of the vote share required for recognition as a state party, but indicated flexibility. “In our calculations, we need to contest 40 seats to survive and gain recognition as a state party. However, in the larger interest of the alliance, we are not insisting on this. We will decide the number through discussions. We have already reduced our demand to 20 and are willing to bring it down further because our primary objective is to remove the BJP from power,” he said.
BJP-led coalition
The ruling camp also does not appear to be having a smooth run either. The BJP’s long-time ally, Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), has seen its space shrink amid the former’s growing dominance, with their seat-sharing deal yet to be finalised.
The AGP, which helped the BJP come to power in 2016 under Sarbananda Sonowal — himself a former AGP leader who joined the BJP in 2011 — has lost some ground now. In 2016, it contested 24 seats and won 14. In 2021, under the NDA’s seat-sharing arrangements, the BJP contested 93 seats, the AGP 25 and the United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL) eight, with the BJP and AGP candidates also having four additional “friendly contests”. The AGP won nine seats.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s recent remarks on seat-sharing have only added to tensions. “It (AGP) is an independent party. It can give tickets in as many seats as it wants, but whether the BJP fields candidates there will be decided by the BJP,” he said.
Sarma also announced that the BJP would contest the Dergaon constituency, currently represented by AGP MLA Bhabendra Nath Bharali, adding that the BJP was “open to a friendly contest” if the AGP chose to field a candidate.
