Why a polarised Assam still bets on Dispur’s Dada

For nearly a quarter of this century, India Today’s Mood of the Nation surveys have served as a steady gauge of India’s shifting public mood. Painstakingly conducted, they have acquired a reputation for rigour and prescience. The August 2025 edition turns to Assam, one of five states heading to assembly polls next year, and finds a political landscape dominated by a combative chief minister, sharpened by questions of identity, land, and governance.

The data are clear. Himanta Biswa Sarma, Assam’s formidable leader, commands a 45 per cent satisfaction rating, with 41 per cent respondents seeking to re-elect him, though nearly a third of respondents say they would prefer change. This contradiction reflects the twin pillars of his politics: an aggressive welfare push and a hard line on illegal immigration. By going after Bangla-speaking Muslims of immigrant origin who are often seen as “illegal infiltrators” and pairing that rhetoric with bulldozer-led eviction drives on encroached land, Sarma has fused Assamese sub-nationalism with the BJP’s Hindutva-inflected nationalism. The result is an electorate polarised yet largely consolidated behind Sarma, who has reinvented himself, from being everyone’s “Dada” a decade ago to the widely embraced “Mama” of today.

Assam government has conducted sweeping eviction campaigns, targeting settlements officially classified as illegal encroachments on public land. Large tracts have been cleared, displacing families, mostly Bangla-speaking Muslims of immigrant origin, who had long occupied grazing reserves, forest land, tribal belts and government land. State authorities present these as enforcement of land rights and environmental protections; critics decry them as selective. Whatever the interpretation, the effect has been to rally indigenous Assamese and Hindu voters, who see the drives as a reassertion of control.

That’s why Sarma’s 45 per cent approval rating in Assam needs careful interpretation. Muslims constitute over 40 per cent of the state’s population and most of them are Bangla-speaking of immigrant origin. Obviously, this segment of population is hostile to him. That means his support—45 per cent respondents saying that they are happy with his performance as chief minister—is drawn mainly from the remaining 60 per cent of the electorate, a base he has consolidated with striking success. In fact, in India Today’s Mood of the Nation assessment of 30 chief ministers, Sarma ranks as the best-performing leader among the big states—those with more than 10 Lok Sabha seats—underscoring the depth of his popularity within Assam.

Yet Sarma’s popularity rests not only on identity politics. His tenure has been marked by unprecedented welfare expansion. Orunodoi cash transfers reach millions of households. Nijut Moina supports girl students. Mission Basundhara streamlines land-title claims for indigenous families. The most recent budget adds stipends for unemployed graduates and entrepreneurial support for youth. Detractors dismiss these as pre-election giveaways, but the immediate household impact translates directly into electoral backing.

The Mood of the Nation poll captures this shift vividly. The BJP, which won 33 per cent of the vote in 2021, now commands the backing of 45 per cent of respondents. Congress, too, has gained ground, rising from 30 per cent vote share in 2021 to the support of 36 per cent respondents today. Yet part of this surge owes less to its own strength than to the collapse of the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF). Only two per cent respondents said they would vote for the AIUDF, which secured over 9 per cent votes in 2021.

If Sarma remains the state’s dominant figure, he faces a credible challenger. Gaurav Gogoi, son of former chief minister Tarun Gogoi, is now Congress’s state president and is backed by 38 per cent of respondents as their preferred chief minister, only three points shy of Sarma. The gap between the two men is narrower than the nine-point gap between their parties, suggesting Gogoi’s personal appeal outpaces his party’s reach.

Gogoi has gained from Muslim voters, disenchanted with Sarma’s policies, rallying behind Congress. Apart from this Muslim support, Gogoi also benefits from his parliamentary visibility, clean image and family legacy. But the party’s structural weaknesses remain unaddressed, and the recent delimitation exercise has concentrated Muslim voters into fewer constituencies, complicating Congress’s electoral calculus. The India Today Mood of the Nation poll indicates that if Lok Sabha elections were held in Assam today, Congress’s vote share would rise from 37 per cent in February to 41 per cent now, yet its tally would remain stuck at three seats.

Despite the prominence of the immigration issue, voters remain focused on bread-and-butter concerns. The Mood of the Nation survey and others have repeatedly shown that jobs outrank communal issues when Indians are asked about their greatest concerns. Assam is no exception. Despite ambitious economic initiatives, unemployment has emerged as the dominant voter concern (39 per cent of respondents) because the scale of intervention fails to match the problem’s magnitude. Assam’s agriculture-dependent economy with limited industrial diversification beyond tea and petroleum creates few opportunities for educated youth, while geographic isolation from major economic centres compounds the problem. The government has sought to attract investment, most notably a Tata-backed semiconductor project. If realised, such ventures would bolster the BJP’s development pitch.

Corruption, too, features prominently: 18 per cent of voters cite it as a concern, giving the opposition ammunition to argue that identity politics deflects from failures of governance. Recent allegations against the BJP president, along with several party leaders and ministers, appear to have struck a chord with sections of the electorate.

Assam’s 2025 political landscape marks a decisive realignment, with the BJP shifting from challenger to entrenched incumbent, sustained by a blend of welfare delivery and identity politics. Polling data captures the electorate’s ambivalence: voters value the tangible benefits of Sarma’s administration even as they voice unease over authoritarian methods and economic strains. As the 2026 assembly elections draw closer, Assam’s mood is one of cautious endorsement, a mandate for the strongman in Dispur tempered by as much apprehension as enthusiasm.