Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
The Lok Sabha constituency of Nagaon has traditionally been a stronghold of the Indian National Congress. So much so that, ahead of vote counting for the bypoll held on October 6, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the BJP would probably not win the seat and could, at best, expect to finish second. According to him, the party was “taking a chance” with the constituency and would be content to see the Congress relegated to third place. In other words, even if Badruddin Ajmal-led All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) won Nagaon, it would hardly be a bitter pill for the BJP to swallow.
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Yet, on Friday, Himanta was proven wrong. And it was Himanta’s appeal and the BJP’s organisational strength under him that helped in proving him wrong.
Devasish Sharma, a former IAS officer and guitarist who left the civil service to join the BJP, won the Nagaon seat by a considerable margin, having bagged more than 7 lakh votes, or about 49% of all votes cast. AIUDF supremo and three-time MP Badruddin Ajmal put up a decent fight but lost by a margin of 1.4 lakh votes.
Meanwhile, one part of Himanta’s prediction did come true. The Congress’ Sibamoni Bora trailed in a distant third, having so far secured only 1.3 lakh votes. Nagaon had been a Congress Lok Sabha seat, and the party’s tally in the House would now drop to 98 from 99.
The Nagaon by-election was necessitated after incumbent Congress MP Pradyut Bordoloi vacated the seat and switched to the BJP ahead of the Assam Assembly elections earlier this year. He subsequently won the Dispur seat. Bordoloi had kept Nagaon in Congress hands since 2019.
That, however, is history.
In his debut election, Devasish Sharma won a big victory, thanks to a combination of the BJP’s superior organisational machinery, a solid election campaign, as well as claims of minority votes shifting to the party. The bypoll results also prove another thing: Himanta Biswa Sarma’s magic continues. And that’s despite Upper Assam being hit by one of the worst floods in decades.
NAGAON WAS FAR FROM AN IDEAL BJP SEAT
Before we go into how Himanta proved himself wrong, let’s get one thing straight: Nagaon is far from what one might consider an ideal BJP seat.
Ever since the 1952 general elections, India’s first, Nagaon has been a reliable bastion for the Congress. The party held the seat non-stop between 1952 and 1977. The Asom Gana Parishad’s Muhi Ram Saikia won the seat in 1985, 1991 and 1996. Congress returned to power in Nagaon in 1998, before the BJP’s Rajen Gohain captured it in 1999 and retained it for four consecutive terms until 2014.
Then, Congress MLA Pradyut Bordoloi, who lost the Assembly election from Margherita in 2016, was rehabilitated in the safe seat in the 2019 general elections. He won it, and retained it in the 2024 general elections as well.
This came even as CM Himanta Biswa Sarma, who himself shifted from the Congress to the BJP, transformed the saffron party into a dominant political force in Assam.
Bordoloi left the Congress earlier this year just before the Assam Assembly elections. He was given a BJP ticket and won the Dispur Assembly seat.
There is another feature of the Nagaon Lok Sabha seat that made winning it a particularly daunting quest for the BJP.
Nagaon is a minority-dominated seat. And after the 2023 Assam Delimitation Exercise, the inclusion of the Dhing, Rupahihat, and Samaguri cemented it as a Muslim majority seat, with the latter comprising 55–60% of the constituency’s population. On the other hand, three Hindu majority Assembly segments, Hojai, Lumding, and Barhampur, were transferred to the newly created Kaziranga constituency.
BJP’S ORGANISATIONAL STRENGTH AND CAMPAIGN HELPED WIN NAGAON
Given Nagaon’s electoral history, the seat appeared more naturally suited to the Congress or the AIUDF, whose supremo, Badruddin Ajmal, was also in the fray. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had predicted that the BJP would, at best, finish second.
Yet, the results proved him wrong. Ajmal had to settle for the second place with about 5.7 lakh votes, while Congress candidate Sibamoni Bora was a distant third with about 1.3 lakh votes. Bora will have to forfeit her security deposit.
So how did Devasish Sharma, a former bureaucrat who received the BJP ticket three days after joining the party, manage to come close to winning Nagaon against the chief minister’s expectations?
Part of the answer might lie in the BJP’s formidable organisational machinery.
Pradyut Bordoloi, the Congress MP who joined the BJP on March 18, 2026, before winning the Dispur Assembly seat, acknowledged the well-oild BJP machinery in the state. Speaking to the Guwahati-based daily The Assam Tribune after his Dispur victory, Bordoloi said he had “effectively” got only 13 days to campaign in a constituency he had never contested before.
“The Congress does not have a strong ground-level workforce,” he said, adding that the BJP’s “well-oiled machinery” had helped him win despite the short campaign. “I must admit that I managed to win with only a few days of campaign because of the well-oiled machinery of the BJP,” he said.
That organisational strength was reflected in the BJP’s Nagaon campaign. The party reportedly organised padyatras across all 2,309 polling booths on the final day of campaigning. Senior leaders and elected representatives, including Assam BJP president Dilip Saikia, organisational general secretary Rabindra Raju and Bordoloi, were deployed across the constituency.
The BJP ally, Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), also pledged its support despite not contesting the bypoll. State minister Pijush Hazarika campaigned in Lahorighat and Jagiroad on October 4, the final day of campaigning. On polling day, he predicted that the BJP would secure 80–85% of the votes cast in Jagiroad.
CM Sarma himself played a prominent role. The chief minister, under whose leadership the BJP increased its Assembly tally from 60 seats in 2021 to 82 in 2026, addressed at least 15 public meetings across all eight Assembly segments in Nagaon ahead of the October 6 bypoll. The BJP-led NDA won 102 seats in the 2026 Assam Assembly elections.
Taken together, the extensive booth-level mobilisation, deployment of senior leaders, support from the AGP and Sarma’s supercharged campaign have contributed to Devasish Sharma’s victory. The BJP candidate himself acknowledged the support he received, telling reporters he was “grateful for the leadership of our honourable Chief Minister” and the support of ministers, “especially led by our guardian minister, Pijush Hazarika.”
HEAT ON CONGRESS, EX-ALLY SAYS IT LOST MINORITY SUPPORT TOO
While the BJP’s superior organisational machinery and campaigning undoubtedly played a role in Sharma’s victory, some party leaders have argued that the party gained from the Congress’s loss of minority voters.
Himanta was himself quoted by ANI as saying that, “While we have retained our traditional votes, we have got a large number of votes from the religious minority.”
Speaking to reporters, BJP MLA Rupak Sarma had stated around 2.40 pm (when the results were not out, but Sharma had a comfortable lead) that, “The counting conducted so far at polling stations across constituencies shows that the BJP is getting a good number of votes. In minority areas, the BJP has received more votes than we expected.”
Similarly, Sharma’s wife, Jahnavi Sharma, told reporters that minority voters in Nagaon were “no longer sentimental about their causes. They want to see development in their areas.”
Most damningly, Akhil Gogoi, chief of erstwhile Congress ally, Raijor Dal, was quoted as saying by ANI, “The most significant development this time is that the minority vote share for Congress has plummeted from 25% to just 5%. The BJP is poised to win this minority-dominated seat”. He then called for Assam State Congress President, Gaurav Gogoi, to resign from his post, “this very day”.
Dispur MLA Bordoloi, meanwhile, attributed the Congress’ drubbing to what he called “disconnect” with the people. He was quoted by ANI as saying, “The Congress leadership sits at the top but has no connection with the ground-level workers here; it is totally disconnected from them.”
In any case, while CM Himanta Biswa Sarma’s predictions for the BJP in Nagaon have fallen flat, his magic, appeal, and his party’s organisational strength remains a force to be reckoned with in Assam. Ultimately, it was Himanta who helped in proving himself wrong.
– Ends
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
