Assam Elections: BJP's Victory Secured by Strategic Delimitation

Delimitation played a crucial role in Assam’s first assembly poll since the redrawing of constituency boundaries in 2023, reducing Muslim-majority seats and leading to an existential battle between BJP’s main rivals, Congress and AIUDF. Although the number of assembly seats remained at 126, delimitation changed the representation matrix, keeping the number of Muslim MLAs below 25 while making indigenous communities the decisive factor in 103 seats, up from 90. CM Himanta Biswa Sarma had stated that delimitation would ensure indigenous communities held over 100 seats. The poll outcome delivered a bonus for BJP. Congress improved its position within the shrunk Muslim-majority belt at the cost of perfume tycoon Badruddin Ajmal’s AIUDF. The state’s new electoral geography had rocked the opposition’s balance even before the polls. Several sitting AIUDF legislators joined the NDA constituent AGP. For BJP, this was a strategic fit, increasing NDA’s prospects in seats where the Muslim vote would be decisive. While the script didn’t exactly play out as planned, AIUDF ending up with just two seats was what BJP wanted. The 2023 delimitation exercise not only reduced the weight of constituencies where Bengali-origin Muslim voters had long held sway but also expanded the number of seats reserved for STs. Assam’s politics has long been shaped by illegal immigration from Bangladesh. The Assam Accord of 1985 fixed March 25, 1971, as the cutoff for citizenship. BJP has consistently