General Election 2014: Will BJP’s Gains Polarize Assam Further?

The emergence of BJP as the single largest party in the Lok Sabha elections 2014 has important implications for realignments of social groups in the country. It has firmly established its foothold in many states thereby emerging as a national party, in the literal sense of the term. Its performance of 7 out of 14 seats in a state like Assam, which had been a Congress stronghold since independence, is no mean feat. The Congress, as elsewhere, managed to do poorly with only three seats and many party heavyweights have been routed out this time. The article argues that this election has sealed the process of disintegration of the ‘catch-all’ nature of the Congress party in Assam, the unravelling of which had already begun in 1985 when Asom Gana Parishad won the assembly elections with a landslide victory. A major reason for this is the realignment of social groups with political parties leading to both ethnic polarization and ethnic accommodation in the state. This breakdown has been expedited on account of growing dissidence and factionalism within the Congress party as well as increasingly shifting loyalties of its core constituencies to other emerging loci of power in the state. Furthermore, the article argues that the emerging political constellation constituting parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party and All India United Democratic Front have a potential to further polarize a much fragmented and fragile Assam.