Behind saffron sweep in Assam: Hindu consolidation, welfare and Himanta

The Bharatiya Janata Party is not only set to form the government in Assam for a third consecutive time, but on Monday it also notched up its best electoral performance in the state – it was poised to win 82 of the total 126 seats.

The saffron sweep was backed up by its allies, with the Bodoland Peoples Front and the Asom Gana Parishad set to win 10 seats each, according to the Election Commission’s website at 5 pm.

In contrast, the footprint of the Congress has shrunk drastically since the 2021 Assembly elections, when it won 29 seats. The party has been decimated in almost all areas of the state, with all but one of its 19 leads coming from seats with a significant Muslim voter count.

Hindu consolidation

The leading reason behind the BJP’s landslide victory appeared to be a massive Hindu vote consolidation.

“The self projection of BJP as the protector of the Hindus and conflation of Hindu and Assamese identity has helped the party consolidate votes,” said political scientist Kaustubh Deka, who teaches at Dibrugarh University.

The BJP first came to power in Assam in 2016, with a promise to protect jati, mati and bheti – community, land, and hearth. In its second term, that translated to aggressive communal...

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