After beating its main opposition in the UPA grand alliance and coming to power in Assam, the BJP could be faced with a fresh headache: Who will be the chief minister? There is a push for the spot from both Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and BJP's northeast pointman Himanta Biswa Sarma. News agency PTI reported that both leaders were summoned to New Delhi by the party's central leadership, apparently to discuss the issue of the next government. They will meet BJP president J.P. Nadda, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP general secretary B.L. Santhosh and others.
The BJP had not declared a chief ministerial candidate pre-polls, leading to speculation as to whether Sonowal can maintain the post. Sonowal belongs to Assam's indigenous Sonowal-Kachari tribals. As THE WEEK's Pratul Sharma reported from Assam: The top post has always gone to leaders from upper Assam, like Sonowal and the late Tarun Gogoi of the Congress. Sarma belongs to lower Assam. According to a veteran Guwahati-based editor, the BJP would be hard-pressed to explain its decision if it picks Sarma, a Brahmin, over Sonowal. “Sonowal is seen as sober and religious,” says the editor. “The Assamese middle class prefer him."
Sonowal cut his teeth in politics as a student leader, participating in the Assam agitation and carrying forward that streetsmart mentality into state politics—a trait that, according to reports, was highly appreciated by then BJP chief Amit Shah. He was a firebrand leader with the All Assam Students Union (AASU) from 1992 to 1999, becoming a member of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and winning assembly elections from Moran constituency, and Lok Sabha elections from Dibrugarh. He joined the BJP in 2011, after expressing disillusionment with AGP, and his rise has since been meteoric. In 2014 general elections, he was elected as an MP from Lakhimpur, going on to win from Majuli in the 2016 state assembly elections and becoming the chief minister.
Himanta Biswa Sarma, on the other hand, had a different trajectory. Once the rising star of the Congress in Assam, he ditched the Congress and joined the BJP, and soon became Amit Shah’s most trusted lieutenant in the northeast. Sarma handles important portfolios in the Assam government and serves as convener of the 13-party Northeast Democratic Alliance, the northeastern cousin of the NDA. When the Lok Sabha elections were announced, Sarma was hoping to contest from Tezpur. But Shah intervened and asked him to coordinate the BJP campaign in the entire northeast. Sarma took charge of the BJP campaign. His first move was to bring back the Asom Gana Parishad into the BJP-led alliance. The AGP had walked away following the BJP’s decision to introduce the Citizenship Bill. Sarma, in fact, has been one of the key proponents of the bill.
In the results announced for the 126-member Assam assembly last Sunday, the BJP won 60 seats and its alliance partners AGP 9 and UPPL six seat
