Post-CAA agitation, it is an intense poll battle

The Assembly election of 2021 is one of the most fiercely fought elections in Assam in recent years. It is remarkable on many counts. First, it is being fought between three broad alliances of parties. Second, it marks the emergence of new regional forces in Assam questioning the alliance of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) with the BJP. Third, this election will be a litmus test for the anti-CAA protesters. Fourth, like in other parts of the country, BJP in Assam, too, is trying its best to polarise voters, and how the voters respond will bear watching.

The BJP came to power in 2016 by forging a broad alliance, accommodating the AGP, the BPF and other small ethnic parties and thereby consolidating the anti-Congress votes. In 2021, Congress has stitched together an even larger alliance with the AIUDF, the Left parties, the RJD and one regional entity with negligible presence, to consolidate anti-BJP votes.

The X-factor of this alliance is, however, the BPF (Bodoland People’s Front). BPF had to leave the BJP alliance after the latter joined hands with the newly formed UPPL in the aftermath of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) election. Hagrama Mahilary, the chief of BPF and who ruled BTC for 15 years, has accused BJP of conspiring to destroy his party. He has vowed to avenge the ‘treachery of BJP’.

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The influence of BPF cannot be overlooked in the Bodo heartland. The Congress-led alliance will also gain substantially in the constituencies with fringe Bodo populations. The Left, although a much-depleted force now, still has a strong influence in the public sphere in Assam. It also commands the support of many committed cadres spread across the state.

The AIUDF, the other partner of the alliance, has consolidated its position in the areas inhabited by the vulnerable religious minorities over the years and Congress is hoping that this alliance would prevent the split in the votes of the religious minorities and greatly affect the election results in western and middle Assam.

There are many who believe that the alliance with AIUDF will sully the image of Congress and strengthen the stereotype of ‘minority appeasement’ attached with the party. But Congress would not be able to evade this typecasting even if it did not ally with AIUDF. The BJP IT cell’s campaign would have seen to that. So, Congress showed prudence in stitching up this alliance.

The BJP-AGP combination is impressive, too. By cashing in on the caste Hindu Assamese fear of being marginalised by the immigrant Muslim population, this alliance is centering its campaign around the imagined fear of Badaruddin Ajmal becoming the Chief Minister if the Congress-led alliance came to power. It also has to its advantage the media-engineered image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Congress renegade and architect of BJP’s 2016 win, too, has cultivated an image of invincibility and efficiency.

The third alliance is of Akhil Gogoi’s Raijor Dal and Lurinjyoti Gogoi’s Asom Jatiya Parishad. Both parties came into being in the aftermath of the anti-CAA movement and the consequent brutal state repression.

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Akhil Gogoi is still languishing in jail. He has been incarcerated ever since the anti-CAA movement last year on a number of concocted charges which the people of Assam find difficult to believe. He is contesting the election for Sivasagar, from jail. There is a high probability of a post-Emergency kind of a win for Gogoi, looking at the emotional outburst of the people against his incarceration. Lurinjyoti Gogoi’s AJP, too, may win a few seats this time. The party and its leader may emerge as the mainstay of regionalism in Assam in the coming years and may fit snugly in the space vacated by AGP.

One significant aspect of this election, evident from the distribution of party tickets, is the complete surrender of AGP to the BJP. All the AGP leaders who did not kowtow to BJP’s ideology during the anti-CAA movement have been denied tickets in this election. The generation of leaders that pulled the party to power first in 1985 is now mostly ignored or forgotten. The convener of the party at the time of its genesis, Brindaban Goswami, and the founding president, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, who was chief minister twice, have been denied tickets by AGP. It is quite obvious that the new leadership has no qualms playing second fiddle to BJP. Thus, a vacuum has been created in regional ideology. Lurinjyoti and his party AJP may fit snugly in that space and emerge as the mainstay of regionalism in Assam in the coming years.

In December 2019, Assam erupted into unprecedented protest when the CAA was passed by Parliament. Led by students, the people of Assam protested against the Act as it was seen to violate the Assam Accord and the spirit of the Constitution of India on citizenship. It was around the issue of CAA that a strong opposition was created to fight BJP. The Congress-led alliance owes its genesis and ideological arsenal to the parties’ common opposition to CAA.

The protest fizzled out when the Covid-19 pandemic took hold. The lockdown, the mass panic and the consequent human tragedies had taken away the immediate concerns and outrage of the people of Assam against CAA. The BJP government, too, got immediate relief from the wrath of the people and the party a full year and a new narrative to rebuild its organisation. Will the anti-CAA feeling in Assam get translated into an anti-BJP vote enough to unseat it?

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But there is no gainsaying the fact that the narrative against CAA is the axel around which opposition unity revolves. The role of the powerful student body, AASU, will be key. Although its erstwhile General Secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoi came out of the organisation and formed the AJP, the reach and influence of AASU is still formidable. The decisions of the local AASU units will still count in the overall outcome of the elections.

The BJP’s spectacular rise to power in Assam was marked by an infusion of powerful leaders from the Congress and AGP. It is often alleged that the party has neglected its original cadres and organisers.

The schism between the old and the new BJP members came out in the open during the distribution of party tickets. It became quite clear that those who joined BJP from Congress got preference in the distribution of tickets at the expense of party old-timers.

The dissent in the party is, however, hidden from the public glare due to its active policy of polarising voters on religious lines. The party has chosen to invoke the anxiety of the Assamese people vis-à-vis the immigrant Muslim population and harps on the issue of inclusion of AIUDF in the Congress alliance. Which narrative will Assam buy into in 2021?

(The writer is a social scientist based in Guwahati)