The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance won Assam for the third time in a row. What makes the BJP’s victory really significant this time is the fact that it single-handedly won more than a simple majority – 82 of the 126 MLAs in the state. This is much higher than the 60 constituencies that the BJP won in the 2016 and 2021 elections. What really explains this remarkable victory for the BJP this time? Here’s what the data shows.
The BJP-led alliance now has nearly 50% of the votes
This is the most important data point to report. The combined vote share of the BJP and its allies is now 48% in Assam. This is much higher than in the 2016 and 2021 Lok Sabha elections and even the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The BJP’s share of contested votes in the state is 55% in this election, much higher than in previous assembly polls. This statistic lends itself to an unequivocal conclusion: the BJP’s better performance in these elections is a reflection of its rising popular support and not tailwinds from factors such as gerrymandering in the 2023 state borders.
Congress performed much worse in terms of seat share despite retaining its vote share in the previous elections
The Congress alliance got about 34% of the votes in Assam this time. This is not much different from what happened in the 2021 or 2024 elections. However, its share of seats fell to 17.5%, the party’s worst performance in the state’s history. What really explains this disproportionate decline in congressional seats? It’s a brutal First Strike (FPTP) system in play. As the opposition camp led by the Bharatiya Janata Party reached 50% of the vote, the Congress Party saw a sharp decline in its ability to convert votes into seats. This is best demonstrated by the seat share to vote share ratio – a good measure of how a party converts popular support into seats in the FPTP system – which fell to an all-time low in Assembly elections in the state.
The geopolitics behind Congress’ punitive mathematics?
It is an important question to ask because Assam is not a homogeneous state in terms of demographics. The state’s population consists of Assamese-speaking Hindus and Muslims, Bengali-speaking Hindus and Muslims along with indigenous groups and the so-called tea tribes of the state. The Muslim population in Assam is geographically skewed. Three sub-regions of the state; Barak Valley, Central Assam and Lower Assam, has a Muslim population share of more than 40% but less than 50%, while the other two sub-regions; Upper Assam and North Assam have only 7.3% and 28.6% Muslim population. High Muslim population sub-districts in the state account for 76 out of 126 districts in the state, while low Muslim sub-districts account for the remaining 50 sub-districts.
18 of the 19 Congress MLAs came from heavily Muslim sub-districts in Assam
This is the most damning indictment of Congress politics in the state. It managed to win only one stream assembly in the two low Muslim population sub-districts of the state as against the BJP’s 41 wins in these two districts. In the three sub-regions with high Muslim population, the Congress’ tally stands at 20 seats against the BJP’s 40 seats. The delimitation likely helped the BJP minimize its losses in this region as it won only 29 and 33 seats in the 2016 and 2021 elections.
What makes the Congress turn into a party that has been marginalized among Hindus and overly dependent on support from Muslims in Assam is the religious profile of its party. 18 of the state’s 19 members of Congress are now Muslims. This is in line with the increasing trend of the proportion of Muslims in the Congress legislative unit of the Assam Assembly, even as the overall number of Muslims in the state has declined. The Congress has won only three Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe reserved seats in Assam, its worst-ever performance on these seats and representing almost a complete alienation of the party from the socio-economically weaker Hindu population of Assam.
