BJP Wins Nagaon Bypoll as AIUDF Influence Fades in Assam

BJP candidate Devasish Sharma has won the Nagaon Lok Sabha bypoll by securing 7,05,126 votes, or 49.52 per cent of the total vote share. Sharma led AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal by 1,51,474 votes, while Congress candidate Sibamoni Bora finished a distant third with 1,27,604 votes. The result highlights a sharp decline for Ajmal, whose AIUDF party had broken the Congress party's monopoly over the state's Muslim vote after being formed in 2005.

Background

Badruddin Ajmal, a 76-year-old perfume businessman and Islamic scholar, launched the party amid local anxieties over citizenship and migration after the Supreme Court struck down the Illegal Migrants Determination by Tribunals Act. The AIUDF grew quickly to become the principal opposition by 2011, drawing strength from a Muslim population that grew to exceed 50 per cent in Nagaon following the 2023 delimitation exercise. However, recent election cycles saw minority voters return to the Congress to defeat the BJP, before the latest bypoll indicated that even sections of minority voters are now willing to back a popular BJP candidate like Sharma, a former IAS officer and former Nagaon deputy commissioner.

Context

Delimitation exercises redraw the boundaries of voting constituencies based on population shifts, which can heavily change the political arithmetic of a region. In Assam, recent boundary changes concentrated minority voters into fewer seats and reshaped traditional voter strongholds across central and lower parts of the state.