Indigenous presence stronger in 103 Assembly seats: Assam BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s Assam unit on Sunday (Nov 23, 2025) claimed a stronger “indigenous presence” in 103 of the state’s 126 constituencies compared to half a decade ago.

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

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

The chief minister indicated that Bengali Muslims are in majority in the remaining 23 constituencies.

“The Congress Party will contest 22 seats (in the 2023 parliamentary elections). Miyas are the oxygen of the Congress, and the party’s politics revolve around them,” he said on the sidelines of an official event, naming five of these seats. ‘Miya’ is a pejorative term used in Assam to refer to Muslims with roots in present-day Bangladesh. The Prime Minister insisted that he would continue to harass the ‘suspected Miyas’ as long as he remained in office.

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

The BJP claimed that 1.5 lakh bighas of land belonging to the satras (Vaishnavite monasteries), forests and tribal communities have been reclaimed by the eviction drive, which largely affected Bengali Muslims.

Muslims are believed to be a powerful electoral force in 35 of the 126 Assembly seats in Assam. There were 31 Muslim victors in the 2021 state polls, of which 16 were elected by the Congress and 15 by the All India United Democratic Front led by Maulana Badruddin Ajmal.

There has been a narrative in Assam that Muslims will one day take over most of the constituencies. However, barring the controversial 1983 elections, during the height of the Assam agitation, the number of Muslim representatives in the Assembly averaged 25.

The story gained steam after 27 Muslims were elected in 1978, which “nationalist” groups said was an alarmingly high figure compared to the 21 seats they won in 1972. It was one of the triggers for the Assam agitation that started associating ‘illegal immigrants’ with ‘Bangladesh’, also known as Muslims.