Guwahati, Dec 24 (IANS): Although winning at least 20 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the northeast is a difficult challenge, the BJP is optimistic that it will succeed in Mission 20 plus for 2024 in this region. The saffron party's poll performance in Assam, which accounts for 14 LS seats, will determine whether or not this goal is achieved.
In Assam, the BJP secured nine of the fourteen seats in the general elections of 2019. AIUDF president Badruddin Ajmal defeated the party in Dhubri, and the Congress won three seats -- Nagaon, Kaliabor and Barpeta. The United People's Party Liberal, a BJP partner, emerged victorious in the Kokrajhar assembly seat.
The BJP is anxious to win more seats in the state this time around.
Apart from retaining all the seats it won in the previous Lok Sabha election, the party has set its sights on three seats currently held by Congress MPs.
Pradyut Bordoloi’s Nagaon seat is the BJP’s first target. The saffron party won this seat more than once, even before becoming a strong force in 2014. Rajen Gohain served consecutively four times in the Lok Sabha — in 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2014 — representing Nagaon constituency.
In 2019, Gohain was not given a ticket, and the BJP fielded a younger face in Rupak Sarma to replace the four-time MP. Gohain, who served as a Union minister in the first Modi cabinet. He was unhappy over the ticket distribution and showed his anger. This created some displeasure at the local level as well, which ultimately cost the BJP the seat to Bordoloi.
According to recent remarks made by Rajen Gohain, the AIUDF now has the upper hand in this situation and the Nagaon seat would become increasingly harder for the BJP to win after the delimitation exercise.
But according to party sources, Himanta Biswa Sarma is committed to regaining the Nagaon seat, and the BJP has set the stage for a strong performance.
Gaurav Gogoi, the son of former Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, is the MP from the Kaliabor constituency. During the delimitation process, this seat was eliminated, and Kaziranga, a new Lok Sabha seat, was created.
A prominent BJP leader claimed that the new seat has a majority of Hindu voters and the party will easily win it in the upcoming general election.
In Barpeta and Dhubri, the Muslim population is more than 50 percent. In its internal meetings, the BJP has discounted the chances of winning these seats and has decided to strongly contest the remaining 12 seats.
The heavyweight minister and Chief Minister’s close aide Pijush Hazarika sarcastically said, "We have intentionally left a few seats for the Congress and the AIUDF and are going to win in 12 out of the 14 Lok Sabha seats."
Meanwhile, Assam Congress president Bhupen Borah told IANS that the "BJP knows their situation is very bad in most of the seats in the state. I bet that if elections are held today, the Congress will win at least seven Lok Sabha constituencies here."
Apparently, at this point, the BJP is riding high in the state on the popular image of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Assam has a nearly 30 percent Muslim population, and this chunk is unhappy with Sarma’s way of functioning. Incessant eviction drives in Muslim-dominated areas, cracking down on madrasas, a large number of police encounters, and recent action against child marriage — the Muslims in the state feel that they have been the administration’s target in almost all things. They will definitely vote against the BJP in the 2024 general elections.
Himanta Biswa Sarma knows it very well and has repeatedly said that he does not need ‘Miya’ votes, a term coined by the Assam Chief Minister to refer to Bengali-speaking Muslims in the state.
Given that there are more Hindus than Muslims in the upper Assam region, the BJP may have an easy time winning the seats there. In the Barak Valley and lower Assam, where Muslim votes typically determine victory or defeat, the situation would be different.
In six seats in Barak Valley and lower Assam, the circumstances are the same. A united candidate from the opposition parties would be a formidable force against the BJP. However, the AIUDF's exclusion from the "INDIA" alliance is an advantage for the BJP.
The most recent delimitation exercise has demonstrated that the BJP conducted an extensive internal assessment of Assam's demographics and attempted to "tweak" the process to its advantage by eliminating four districts shortly before the ECI released the dates of the delimitation exercise.
To come up with a promising outcome from the northeast in next year's polls, the BJP must do extremely well in Assam. In some of the states here, like Meghalaya, Mizoram, and even Nagaland, the BJP cannot win on its own strength. It would have to rely on allies. Therefore, Sarma’s strategy is to go all out to win the maximum number of seats in Assam.
If the BJP fails to do well in Assam, the entire dynamics in the northeast for the saffron camp would change dramatically.