The other battle in Assam—Sarbananda Sonowal versus Himanta Biswa Sarma
Both CM Sarbanand Sonowal and finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, have dubbed the speculation as media creation. But on the ground there is a palpable inquisitiveness about the next CM
In Assam, which goes to polls in three phases starting Saturday, vote share, seats and winning margins are not the only issues dominating the election discourse in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s camp. There is much curiosity and speculation about who will be the next chief minister, if the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) retains power in the state.
Both chief minister (CM) Sarbanand Sonowal and the other contender for the top slot, finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, have dubbed the speculation as media creation. But on the ground there is a palpable inquisitiveness about the next CM.
Sonowal told HT in an interview that both him and Sarma work as a team. “My interest is to have a BJP government in Assam. I am a committed party person and want the party to come to power. We work as a team and the stories of our tussle are made up by the media,” he said.
For his part, Sarma said both he and the current CM know that the final decision will be the Prime Minister’s and it will be accepted by both, without question.
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“I had decided not to contest the elections to clear the air about the leadership issue, but was asked to contest by the party. And it does not matter what I think, if the PM and the HM (home minister) decide that I will not be (CM), then can I become one?” he said to HT in an interaction on Wednesday.
The roots of the speculation
The speculation about a possible change in the state’s leadership was set off after the BJP did not explicitly name Sonowal as the CM candidate, and following the first round of meetings to finalise the candidates list, state unit president Ranjeet Kumar Dass telling mediapersons that the call to announce the CM candidate rests with the party’s parliamentary board. He said the party follows the practice of not taking a call till after the results are announced.
This is however, in contrast, with the 2016 election in Assam, where the BJP set aside its rule of not announcing a CM face ahead of polls. The party’s parliamentary board had then announced that the Assam assembly elections will be contested under the leadership of Sonowal.
This was the second such instance of the party naming a CM candidate since BJP assumed power at the Centre under Modi. Earlier, it had named former IPS officer Kiran Bedi as the face of the Delhi assembly election.
“After the 2014 general elections, all state elections were fought with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the face. No names were announced for Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Bihar (for the 2015 election) or in Uttar Pradesh in 2017,” said a senior BJP functionary based in Delhi.
However both Devendra Fadnavis and Manohar Lal Khattar were projected as the leaders subsequently in 2019. In November 2020, amid speculation that the NDA in Bihar could have a BJP face, the party threw its weight behind JDU’s Nitish Kumar to be the CM candidate.
“Both Nitish Kumar and Fadnavis were names as CM candidates because in both states, the party went to polls in alliance with other parties. In Maharashtra, it had to be put on record that the BJP will get the CM’s post while in Bihar the party opted to give the top job to the JDU,” said the functionary quoted above.
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Similarly, it was taken for granted that Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh, Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan and Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh would be the CMs if the party returned to power. While the BJP lost in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, Chouhan returned to the CM’s position after the Kamal Nath government fell after a year.
The local dynamic
In Assam, party functionaries are tight-lipped about their preference but shower praise on both the leaders for the “value” they bring.
“The CM is popular, he has a clean image and he is the face of Assam’s indigenous identity. After the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests in the BJP strongholds of Upper Assam, he is the one who reached out and managed to prevent damage to the votebank,” said a second party leader requesting anonymity.
A third leader said Sarma who switched from the Congress to the BJP, has “displayed remarkable leadership qualities”.
“During the coronavirus disease crisis, he was the one who took charge. He was in and out of hospitals in PPE kits and oversaw the arrangements for offering relief to the masses. He is also a well known face in Assam,” the third functionary said.
Sarma has also played a key role in expanding the BJP’s footprint across the Northeast and emerged as the party’s key troubleshooter. He had left the Congress, owing to differences with the late chief minister Tarun Gogoi, on the question of succession, for he was understood to harbour chief ministerial ambitions when Gogoi brought his son, Gaurav Gogoi, into politics. While Sarma switched to the BJP, recognising that he would have to prove his political credentials and the party does not have a record of immediately handing over leadership to a political figure from outside (Manipur is an exception where a Congress defector, N Biren Singh, was made chief minister), Sarma devoted himself to proving his political and ideological commitment in the last five years.
The first functionary however said the posters in Assam are an indication too. The posters show Sonowal in the front with Sarma and Das behind him. Another set has Sonowal alongside PM Modi and union home minister Amit Shah.
Will the confusion over the choice of leadership impact the BJP’s electoral fortunes? Professor of political science at the Dibrugarh University, Kaustubh Deka said the BJP will not allow any internal dissent to affect its chances at the hustings.
“The party structure and management is so strong that it can prevent any internal dissent or infighting from affecting its electoral outcome. It knows how to placate different sections,” he said.
