Limited seats give manifold influence to saffron partyThe delimitation proved to be a wild card in Assam’s first assembly election after constituency boundaries were redrawn in 2023, reducing the number of Muslim-majority seats from 35 to 22, leaving the BJP’s two main rivals – Congress and AIUDF – fighting for survival against each other. Although the number of assembly seats remained unchanged at 126, delimitation changed the representation matrix, bringing the number of Muslim MLAs down to 25, while indigenous communities were made the deciding factor on 103 seats, up from 90. CM Himanta Biswa Sarma has always been saying that delimitation will ensure the capture of more than 100 seats by indigenous communities out of the 126 seats at stake. The election results proved to be a bonus for BJP. The Congress improved its position in the shrinking Muslim-majority belt at the expense of perfumer Badruddin Ajmal’s AIUDF.

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The new electoral geography of the state had thrown the opposition out of balance even before the elections. Many sitting AIUDF MLAs joined NDA constituent AGP to ensure that they do not miss the boat in the race for fewer tickets than ever before. For the BJP, it was a strategic fit, boosting the NDA’s chances in seats where Muslim votes would be decisive. Although the script did not go exactly as planned, AIUDF being reduced to just two seats was exactly what the BJP wanted. The 2023 delimitation exercise not only reduced the weight of constituencies where Muslim voters of Bengali origin had long dominated, but also increased the number of seats reserved for STs from 16 to 19. SC seats increased by one to nine. The reassigned seats included Congress strongholds in Lower, Central and Southern Assam with high concentrations of Muslim voters. Assam’s politics has long been shaped by illegal immigration from Bangladesh.

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The Assam Accord of 1985, which was born out of a mass movement, fixed March 25, 1971 as the cutoff for citizenship. But even after that, allegations of illegal infiltration continue. The BJP has consistently argued that the state’s political trajectory should be determined by indigenous communities rather than the migrant Muslim population. Voting patterns among minorities in the state were historically associated with the party in government until the BJP formed its first ministry in 2016. This dynamic has changed further after delimitation, with voters in the remaining Muslim-dominated seats supporting the Congress, amid concerns over whether their interests are safe under the BJP.