Assam: Mamata Banerjee had taken oath as WB Chief Minister on Thursday, MK Stalin and N Rangasamy were sworn in as Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry on Friday. While Pinarayi Vijayan will be sworn in as the Kerala Chief Minister for the second time on May 20.
However, despite having a clean mandate in Assam, the saffron party is yet to elect the leader who will lead the state for the next five years as Chief Minister. On Saturday, despite several hour-long meetings at the residence of BJP national president JP Nadda, the saffron party's parliamentary board have failed to come out with a name for the top seat in Assam.
The delay on the part of the saffron party in having a consensus chief ministerial candidate for Assam clearly indicates the tough choice before the party. Sarbananda Sonowal or Himanta Biswa Sarma?--the dilemma now seems to have forced the top brass of the saffron party to leave it to the BJP legislators to elect the leader of their choice as the CM.
Read: Assam BJP leaders Sarma, Sonowal meet party's top brass in Delhi
While Sonowal is a mass leader who had almost single-handedly brought the saffron party, hitherto he has been dubbed as a party of Hindi speaking people or north India, close to the people of Assam in 2016. Sonowal who took charge of the saffron party in Assam in 2012 had turned the saffron party into a mainstream party in Assam by his charismatic leadership. It is his strong leadership for which the party managed to snatch seven out of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam in 2014.
Hailed a Jatiya Nayak (National Hero in Assamese) for his role in getting the infamous Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act repealed in the Supreme Court, Sonowal had led the party to a stupendous victory in 2016 assembly polls having secured 60 out of the 126 assembly seats. Known as a party of "outsiders" (predominantly because of the saffron party's presence in the Hindi belt), BJP had secured mostly single-digit seats in Assam prior to 2016. While in 2001 BJP's strength in Assam assembly was only 8, it rose to 10 in 2006 assembly polls and further reduced to mere 5 seats in 2011 assembly polls.
Sonowal maintains a suave image and there is not a single allegation of corruption against him in his entire political career spanning over more than two decades, a rare trait that not many political leaders or his competitors enjoy in Assam. Hailing from the indigenous Sonowal Kachari community and having drawn experience from students politics, Sonowal had led the powerful All Assam Students' Union from 1992 to 1999 and was a regional leader winning assembly polls from Moran. He was elected to the Lok Sabha twice from Dibrugarh and Lakhimpur seats.
Read: Assam: Tea estate in Dibrugarh shut down as 133 test COVID positive
Himanta Biswa Sarma, on the other hand, was rather a late entrant to saffron politics in Assam. A rising star of the Congress, Sarma ditched the grand old party in 2015 after being disillusioned with the 'dynasty politics' of the party. Although Sonowal led the saffron team in 2016 assembly polls in Assam, role of Himanta Biswa Sarma was no less important for ensuring the saffron victory in the state in 2016. Sarma not only brought his team of loyalists to the saffron fold in 2016 but also campaigned across the length and breadth of Assam to ensure the saffron bloom in the state.
After 2016, Sarma's career in BJP witnessed a meteoric rise and he became the most trusted lieutenant of none other than Amit Shah. Sarma, who had floated the BJP-led North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) also remained instrumental in leading the BJP to victory in most of the northeastern states since 2016. Be it Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur or in Tripura, Sarma was seen leading the campaigns in the states to make the 'lotus bloom' a reality in the northeastern region. When Sarma expressed his desire to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Tezpur, it was Amit Shah who intervened and said that his service was required more to oversee the saffron campaign in the entire northeast.
Read: BJP top brass divided over Assam's next CM
Sarma, who was given the important portfolios including health and finance, has also won wide accolades in containing the COVID-19 situation in Assam, setting a model before the entire country in tacking the spread of the virus. Also known as the government's only "go-to man" in Assam, Sarma was seen visiting crematoriums at night to console the relative of those killed by COVID-19 and even entered the COVID care centres donning the PPE kits to take stock of the treatment of those suffering--two acts that have definitely given him the edge over any other contemporary political leaders. Known and widely appreciated for his organizational skills in the saffron party, Sarma is undoubtedly a competitor for the Chief Minister's position in Assam this time.
However, as the BJP's top brass have already put the ball in the court of party legislators in Assam, the people of Assam have to wait to see which of the two leaders gets more legislators rallied behind him to lead the state for the next five years.
