4 min readGuwahatiMar 15, 2026 08:49 PM IST
First published on: Mar 15, 2026 at 08:49 PM IST
The Assembly polls in Assam, scheduled to be held on April 9 in a single phase, will see the Congress, after defeats in two successive Assembly elections, face off against the formidable BJP machinery helmed by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.
The poll battle is expected to be as much a fight of narratives — the Congress’s politics of inclusivity and secularism versus the BJP’s campaign talking points built around alleged minority appeasement of the Opposition party, alleged demographic changes resulting from “infiltration”, and its development politics — as a clash between Sarma and state Congress president Gaurav Gogoi.
Here are 5 things to watch out for as the campaign gets underway:
* CM at the top
High on confidence, Sarma will seek his second term as CM, with a mix of strongman politics, polarising rhetoric, development plank, and a plethora of beneficiary cash schemes. His political influence appears unrivalled in the state currently and will be a test of whether the Opposition’s efforts to shore up corruption charges against him dent his position.
* Big test for Gaurav
Gaurav, the son of late CM Tarun Gogoi, has established himself in the Congress and currently helms the state unit and serves as the party’s Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha. While he has been an MP since 2014, he took charge of the state Congress only last year and this election will mark his first foray in a state election. He will contest from the Jorhat Assembly constituency, part of the Lok Sabha seat of the same name that he commandingly won in 2024. Jorhat is in upper Assam and the Congress will look to regain ground in the region where it had shrunk in 2021. Now the undisputed leader of the party in Assam, which had been searching for one since Tarun Gogoi died in 2020, this election will be a crucial test of Gaurav’s leadership.
Assam will vote in a single phase on April 9.
* A split Opposition
The Opposition is going to be split into at least three ways in this election. The Congress has built an alliance with the CPI(M), the Asom Jatiya Parishad, and the All Party Hill Leaders Conference after talks with the Raijor Dal collapsed.
Apart from Congress MLAs, its other three alliance partners have only one sitting legislator among them: CPI(M)’s Manoranjan Talukdar. On the other hand, the Raijor Dal, led by the volatile but dynamic Sibsagar MLA Akhil Gogoi, will be fielding two other sitting MLAs who recently joined it after parting ways with the Congress.
Lastly, there is the AIUDF that had contested the 2021 election as part of the Congress-led Mahajot alliance and for which this election is likely to be a fight for survival. Reeling from its supremo Badruddin Ajmal’s crushing defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha election in Dhubri, without any alliance partners, and vying with both the Congress and the Raijor Dal for minority votes, the AIUDF stands isolated.
How this split Opposition plays out in a political field dominated by the BJP and whether these non-BJP parties cut each other’s votes will be among the things to track.
* What’s happening between BJP and AGP?
Though the election schedule has been announced, the BJP has yet to finalise and release its seat-sharing deal with long-time ally Asom Gana Parishad (AGP). This signals there is a sense of unease working in the AGP as it strives to retain its political relevance. As the BJP’s junior partner in the alliance, its position has shrunk consistently even as its workers across various constituencies push for it to contest from their areas. The AGP’s position at the end of the election will contain the clues to its future.
* Will delimitation have an effect?
This will be the first Assembly election since the 2023 delimitation of constituencies, which the Opposition has alleged was carried out to deliberately reduce the deciding power of Muslim voters from around 35 of the state’s 126 seats to about 23. The result of this election will show how much this exercise will affect representation in the next Assembly.