THE HIMANTA ROCK SHOW

Changing tack, the Assam CM is steering clear of religious rhetoric and reaching out to Muslim voters to take the BJP tally to a record high in the northeastern state

- Kaushik Deka

The hot April forenoon does not seem to have deterred the people of Juria-Rupahi, a small rural block in Assam's Nowgong district, from rushing to the rally spot where Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is scheduled to address them. Young and old, men and women, they are all there. The overtly enthusiastic ones surround the CM's chopper as it descends. With an estimated Muslim population of 95 per cent, electorally, this could be considered 'hostile territory' for a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader. But not for Sarma. Hopping off the chopper, he runs to the nearly 10,000 people assembled there and jumps the barricade, sending the crowd into a frenzy. They hug him, touch him, and shake his hands, in the process, leaving many scars on his arms. In the background, the party's campaign song, Akou Ebar Modi Sarkar' (once again Modi government), is playing at full blast. Sarma gets on to the stage, flanked by two huge cutouts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and starts singing and dancing like a rock star. The crowd erupts in joy and joins in, as the venue reverberates with 'Bharat Mata ki Jai and 'Modi Zindabad'.

This is an incredible turnaround for a man known for his controversial statements against alleged Muslim immigrants in Assam. Not long back, Sarma had claimed that he didn't want 'Miya' votes, using the pejorative term for the descendants of Bengali Muslim migrants. His outreach to the same cohort suggests a shift in strategy, stemming from his desperation to take the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance's tally in the state to a historic high and raise his clout within the party even further.