Surprisingly, it appears that even without strong organisation in the grassroots level of the state, the Bharatiya Janata Party has emerged as the Congress’s main rival in the 2016 Assam assembly election, the second phase of which is being held today. Part of the reason behind the BJP’s emergence lies in the covert strategy the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been working on for the past several months to ensure the party’s win in the assembly polls.
According to an RSS functionary, in November last year, the RSS had arrived at certain “crucial decisions” for the assembly polls in Assam. “We knew we would have to work very hard since the BJP was weak at the local level,” the functionary said. “We decided to wait for the strategy that would be adopted by the BJP leadership including the alliances with other parties.”
Both the BJP and the RSS had agreed that, in order to prevent the state from “being overrun by illegal Bangladeshi immigrants,” a BJP government would have to be formed. A section of BJP workers surmised that if the Congress were to return, it would probably join hands with the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) led by the by perfume baron Badruddin Ajmal. The AIUDF has traditionally drawn its support from the Bengali Muslims in the state, which includes citizens and immigrants.
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