Indigenous presence stronger in 103 Assembly seats: Assam BJP

The Assam unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party claimed on Sunday, November 23, 2025, that it has a stronger “indigenous presence” in 103 of the 126 constituencies in the State Assembly compared to half a decade ago.

The party attributed this trend to the delimitation exercise in 2023 and the “significant progress” made in securing political and land rights of indigenous communities in the state under the leadership of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

“…the latest delimitation exercise has reportedly ensured that more than 103 constituencies in the Assembly now reflect a stronger indigenous presence, an outcome the party has described as a major step towards long-standing political safeguards,” the BJP said in a statement.

The Prime Minister stated that Bengali Muslims are in majority in the remaining 23 constituencies.

“The Congress party will contest on 22 seats (in the 2023 Assembly elections). Miyas are the oxygen of the Congress and the party’s politics revolves around them,” he said, naming five of these seats on the sidelines of an official event. ‘Miya’ is a derogatory term used in Assam to refer to Muslims with roots in modern-day Bangladesh. The prime minister insisted he would continue to harass the “suspect Miyas” as long as he remained in office.

“The eviction drive will continue while polygamy is stopped,” he said.

The BJP claimed that 1.5 lakh bighas of land belonging to satras (Vaishnavite monasteries), forests and tribal communities have been taken back through the eviction drive, which has greatly affected Bengali Muslims.

Muslims are believed to have a strong electoral force in 35 of Assam’s 126 Assembly seats. 31 Muslims emerged victorious in the 2021 State polls; of these, 16 were contested by the Congress and 15 by the All India United Democratic Front led by Maulana Badruddin Ajmal.

There is a narrative in Assam that one day Muslims will capture most of the constituencies. However, except for the controversial 1983 elections during the peak of the Assam Agitation, the average number of Muslim representatives in the Assembly was 25.

The narrative gained momentum after the election of 27 Muslims in 1978; ‘nationalist’ groups found it alarmingly high compared with the 21 seats they won in 1972. This was one of the triggers of the Assam Agitation, which began to associate “illegal immigrants” with “Bangladeshis”, i.e. Muslims.