The Assam Discord

Fears that the Citizenship Amendment Bill will enfranchise Bengali migrants in Assam stoke a backlash that could damage the BJP’s electoral prospects in the state.

- Kaushik Deka

Panchayat elections in Assam have traditionally been low-key affairs. So, the use of at least three helicopters by the state BJP to campaign for the rural elections on December 5 and 9 has been unprecedented. For nearly two weeks, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and state finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma flew to multiple destinations, fervently appealing to voters to support the saffron party. Nothing has been left to chance, with the two big leaders personally monitoring the electoral strategy of the party.

At the centre of this aggressive and desperate campaign by the BJP, which came to power for the first time in the state in 2016, winning 60 of the 126 assembly seats, is the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, which now threatens to upset the party’s electoral fortunes in the state. Ever since the bill was tabled in the Lok Sabha on July 19, 2016, the state has witnessed mass opposition to it, especially in the Brahmaputra Valley, which shut down on October 23, in response to a call for a bandh given jointly by 60 organisations. Though the state BJP government issued orders for offices and schools to remain open, roads were deserted and offices and commercial establishments were shuttered. “We have been generous enough to accommodate illegal immigrants who have entered Assam till 1971. Now we cannot take more people in the name of religion. This bill is a BJP cons piracy. The people of Assam gave the BJP seven seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha poll and a massive mandate in the 2016 assembly poll. It has now betrayed the people of Assam,” says Samujjal Bhattacharya, chief advisor of the All Assam Students’ Union, the most influential social group in Assam.