There was a reason why the British invested in a 65-km railway track from Dibrugarh to Margherita in the early 1880s, less than two decades after Asia’s first oil well was drilled at the nearby Digboi town.
The track helped transport coal, tea, and timber from Margherita and stations en route to the Brahmaputra River port at Dibrugarh. The town developed into the administrative hub of eastern Assam and became a major centre for trade, commerce, and education in the region.
Dibrugarh was one of the highest revenue-collecting centres in India during and after the transfer of power in 1947. However, its graph started dropping a couple of decades later and accelerated after the Assam Agitation of 1979-85 and the United Liberation Front of Asom brand of extremism.
Dibrugarh and the adjoining Tinsukia district used to be the outfit’s strongholds until about two decades ago.
The town celebrated when one of its sons, Sarbananda Sonowal, became the Chief Minister of Assam’s first Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in 2016, although he represented Majuli, a constituent of the Jorhat Lok Sabha constituency in the east.
Dibrugarh and the eponymous district, however, did not grab the spotlight as much as it has since Mr. Sonowal’s successor, Himanta Biswa Sarma, unfurled the National Flag on the 76th Republic Day.
The focus of the CM’s speech was on the government’s decision to develop Dibrugarh as the State’s second capital. “The construction work for a permanent Assembly building in Dibrugarh will start on January 25, 2026,” he said, promising a session of the Assembly in Dibrugarh every year from 2027.
Through his speech, Mr. Sarma did not only convey the BJP’s bid to rule Assam for the third successive term after the 2026 Assembly election. The CM also indicated his party’s determination not to let its support base in ‘Ujoni Asom’ (Upper or eastern Assam) slip.
The Brahmaputra Valley of Assam is temperamentally divided into ‘Ujoni’ and ‘Namoni (Lower or western) Asom’. The Ujoni has been the power centre in the State since 1978 and has given Assam six Chief Ministers who have reigned for a total of almost 30 years, separated unequally by the reign of three others from beyond the ‘Ujoni’ map, including Prafulla Kumar Mahanta of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP). The AGP later became the BJP’s regional ladder to climb to the top in Assam.
Mr. Sarma, associated with Namoni, broke the longest Ujoni run of 20 years between Congress heavyweight Tarun Gogoi and Mr. Sonowal in 2021.
Barring southern Assam’s Bengali-dominated Barak Valley, the Ujoni has largely fuelled the BJP’s rise to power in the State and, by default, the Northeast beyond. Much of its electoral performances in the tea-rich eastern part since the 2014 Lok Sabha election have been attributed to the shift of the Adivasi or tea plantation workers, along with the dominant Ahoms and related communities such as the Morans and Mataks, away from the Congress.
ST status issue
These four communities are among six that banked on the BJP to do what Congress could not — grant them the status of Scheduled Tribes (ST).
During the elections, the Congress and the BJP managed to overcome the ST status issue, which is entangled in legal complications. The latter is believed to be warier of how the aggressive campaign of its Namoni leaders backfired in the Jorhat Lok Sabha constituency, which comprises mostly Adivasi and Ahom voters, in 2024.
Jorhat is one of five Ujoni parliamentary seats. The others are Dibrugarh, Kaziranga, Lakhimpur, and Sonitpur — the last two on the northern bank of the Brahmaputra.
The BJP maintained its 2019 tally of nine parliamentary seats, but it was expected to perform better after the 2023 delimitation, which led to the redrawing of the constituency map. However, the loss of the Jorhat seat to Gaurav Gogoi, arguably the tallest Congress leader in Assam, rankled the ruling party. In Dibrugarh, Mr. Sonowal secured 54.27% of the votes polled, 10% less than his predecessor Rameswar Teli mustered in 2019.
Overall, the BJP’s vote share increased by 1.02% to 37.43% in 2024, while the Congress increased its tally by 1.69% to 37.48%.
Rising Namoni influence
The BJP led in most of the Assembly segments in these five Lok Sabha seats, but there are fears that the scenario may change closer to the 2026 Assembly poll. The Congress and its regional allies, specifically Raijor Dal and Assam Jatiya Parisad, are seen as clawing their way up in the Ujoni. The the Namoni’s increasing political and administrative clout is also seen as a psychological block, which Mr. Sarma and his team want to overcome with major plans for the Ujoni.
Published – January 29, 2025 01:56 am IST
