In India’s Assam State, Congress Party’s Troubles Work In Favor Of The BJP – OpEd
The Congress party received a severe jolt in India’s Assam state when Pradyut Bordoloi, its veteran leader and incumbent Member of Parliament from Nagaon, resigned from the party ahead of the 9 April Assembly elections. In a letter to party president Mallikarjun Kharge on 17 March, Bordoloi wrote: “With an overwhelming sense of sadness, I hereby tender my resignation from all posts, privileges, and the primary membership of the Indian National Congress.” After his resignation, Bordoloi told media that after three decades in Congress, he felt humiliated and isolated within the party, insinuating that all was not well between him and Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Gaurav Gogoi.
The BJP was quick to capitalize on Bordoloi’s resignation. “In Assam, the Congress has become a party of Mia Muslim’s. It is anti-Hindu and anti-Assam,” a BJP spokesman said, reiterating Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s political line of targeting Assam’s nine million Bengali-speaking Muslims out of Assam’s 13 million Muslim population. It also fanned the speculation that Bordoloi — like Himanta Biswa Sarma in 2015 — was on his way to join the BJP.
Such speculations ended when Bordoloi formally joined the BJP on 18 March. Welcoming him to the party fold, Biswa Sarma said, “Pradyut Bordoloi has joined the BJP. We all welcome him to our party. Assam Pradesh BJP will recommend to the central leadership that he should fight the assembly elections. There is no reason for someone with self-respect to stay with the Congress party. We aim to bring more Congress leaders into the party.”
Although Biswa Sarma’s line prevailed, the Assam BJP, however, is not unequivocal to welcome Bordoloi. State president Dilip Saikia’s knee jerk reaction to Bordoloi’s prospects of joining his party was: “There is no vacancy.” Marinated in RSS scheme of things, Saikia went on to explain that anyone who wanted to join the BJP had to go through the usual paces before they move into leadership positions. Biswa Sarma, on the other hand, is determined to take advantage of as much political damage as possible that Bordoloi’s switch can inflict on the Congress.
Bordoloi, on his part, has clarified that his decision to quit was driven more about humiliation, neglect and isolation he faced in the Congress than about ticket distribution or political opportunism. As an example of humiliation, Bordoloi cited the case of Asif Mohammad Nazar who is an MLA from Lahorighat constituency. During the panchayat elections in Assam in April 2025, Bordoloi’s convoy came under attack at Dhing, near Nagaon. Bordoloi thought it was orchestrated by the BJP. But later, suo motu police investigation found that it was carried out by Imdadul Islam, who was a follower of Asif Nazar. The police arrested Islam; but when he was released on bail, Nazar welcomed him and escorted him to meet PCC president Gaurav Gogoi.
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While renomination of Asif Nazar may have triggered Bordoloi’s resignation, the discontent within Assam PCC have been bleeding the party for the past several months. The discontent, in almost every instance, has been driven by state level leaders complaining of neglect, humiliation and isolation by Congress’ central leadership. “When we inform Delhi of problems we are facing at the ground level, we get no response,” a Congress worker from Assam said.
This sub-terrain discontent, left unaddressed, has resulted in significant resignations. In May 2025, PCC spokesperson Bobbeeta Sarma resigned. Followed by a bigger blow in February 2026 when Bhupen Borah, two-time MLA and the president of the state unit from 2021 until 2025, quit the party. Borah was regarded as the “indigenous Hindu face.” Himanta Biswa Sarma was quick to move in, wasting no time to accommodate Borah into the state executive of the BJP.
During conversations with state-level Congress leaders, words like self-respect, isolation, sidelined, ignored crop up rather frequently. And the “door is open for people to leave” attitude has not helped. Workers fondly remembers former Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi’s reconciliatory approach in running the party as well as state politics: You do not finish off your political opponent or competitors; you try to engage with them, bring them over to you side and carry them along with you.
The transition of power from Borah to Gaurav Gogoi has widened the rift between the “old guard” and the new leadership which the party is finding difficult to bridge. Insiders note that the appointment of Gogoi — who no doubt is popular among a section of Congress workers — failed to contain the existing factionalism. “Gogoi is articulate and suited well for Delhi and Lok Sabha-oriented politics and roles like the deputy leader of opposition. But to lead the state politics, one needs to be more grounded and conversant with nuances of local issues and stakes,” points out a Guwahati-based political observer.
In this respect, Gogoi is pitted against Biswa Sarma who knows the inner workings of the system as well as the political landscape of northeast like the back of his hand. Moreover, Biswa Sarma is popular, approachable and easily engages actively with a wide range of people. “You approach him with any problem and he will get it done or follow up unless a solution is found. He has even created whatsapp groups through which he keeps in touch with large sections of diverse people who become his eyes and years,” said a police official on condition of anonymity, pointing out that Biswa Sarma’s image of a politician deep-rooted in Assam’s socio-political ethos overshadows the allegations of corruption brought against him by his critics.
Other than leadership attrition, there are couple of issues that are proving to be dead weights for the Congress in pre-election Assam. The foremost of them being alliance delays. The slow pace of negotiations for a Grand Alliance with regional parties like Raijor Dal and Assam Jatiya Parishad has given rise to frustration, to the extent that the negotiation with Raijor Dal broke down. There is also the question of ideological drift. Many workers jumping the Congress ship have expressed concern that the party had lost its connect with the Khilanjia (indigenous) voter base, particularly in Upper Assam, leaving a vacuum that the BJP has aggressively filled.
Bordoloi’s resignation and joining the BJP is a major setback for the Congress in the run-up to the elections. “Now, it will be a cakewalk for the BJP,” the police official summed it up, adding that it is the former Congress party which has now metamorphosed into Assam’s BJP.
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