NEW DELHI ,7 April 2026 : Assam election 2026 is Himanta Biswa Sarma’s litmus test. While he has been around in Assam politics, and very visibly so, since the 1990s, this is the election when he is the incumbent and the face. The last two BJP victories were also largely credited to him, but in 2016, he was a neo-convert to the BJP, which picked Sarbanand Sonowal as the Chief Minister after the party’s first win, and fought the next election in 2021 under his leadership. Himanta was not on the ballot, so to say. He became the Chief Minister after the victory.
But this time he is. After a full 5-year-term, he is trying to deliver a hat-trick for the BJP, but more than that, he is trying to make a bigger political and personal point: that he is the winner, not just a backroom boy. The stakes are highest for Sarma in 2026 than ever.
The No.2 who always wanted to be No. 1
When former Assam Chief Minister and Congress veteran Hiteshwar Saikia was trying to bring young people to the party fold after the restive 1980s of the Assam Agitation, he found his man in Himanta Biswa Sarma. A young student activist in those days, Sarma, who had built a name for himself in campus politics by then, was associated with the influential All Assam Students Union.
Since joining the Congress in 1991 and quitting it in 2015, he remained the go-getter for both Saikia and later, Tarun Gogoi. Sarma helmed key ministries such as finance, health, PWD, and was the driver of key govt programmes.
But he remained No. 2. The man who was trusted by the top. The man who would get the job done. The trusted lieutenant, not the general. He thrived, he rose, but not to the top.
As Tarun Gogoi’s health started to fail after 2011 Assembly elections, Sarma was transparent in his ambition to be the Chief Minister. When it became clear to him that Gogoi would rather push his son, and not him, for the top, he walked away.
Since joining BJP in 2015, Sarma has been the party’s face not just in Assam but the entire northeast. He is the party’s chief strategist, alliance maker, the opposition breaker. The man trusted by the Centre. But even in the BJP, with all the accolades, and being credited for the party’s first win in 2016, he remained the necessary No.2.
That jinx broke in 2021, and the BJP put Sarma in the driver’s seat as Sarbanand Sonowal stepped aside. Sarma got what he always believed he deserved and worked tirelessly for it.
This is the first election where Himanta is the face, front and centre, not a backroom planner and manipulator. This is his election. And he has consciously worked for it to be this way. His five-year reign has been all about himself. He is the face of the government. Learning from his own experience and political curve, Sarma has made sure that there is no No. 2 in his regime. He is a one-man show.
From addressing press conferences, to inaugurations, to levelling stunning charges against his rivals, it is only the Chief Minister you see. To the extent that he even announces the board exam dates himself. It was Sarma, not a top cop, who addressed the press on the findings of SIT against Gaurav Gogoi over his alleged Pakistan connections.
Picture credit social media
