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Rahul Gandhi wants to jail Himanta Sarma but Congress has a Bihar-sized problem in Assam

The Congress has promised Rs 50,000 assistance to each woman but as we've seen in many recent elections, voters seem to be conscious of the proverb: 'A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.'

The Congress is following a familiar script in Assam— a tweaked version of Rahul Gandhi’s ‘chowkidar chor hai’ campaign from the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The party is going overboard to paint Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma as corrupt. And Gandhi is threatening to throw Sarma into jail. He must be very sure about the Congress returning to power in Assam. What makes him so confident, though?

Congress leaders cite at least three major factors. To start with, the Opposition party is counting on 10 years of anti-incumbency against the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. Sarma’s personal popularity, however, gives it the Teflon coating. That explains the Opposition’s relentless attempts to demolish his public persona. It comes from Rahul Gandhi’s playbook against PM Modi.

The second factor the Gaurav Gogoi-led Congress is banking on is the large social coalition it has sought to build through alliances with five parties—Akhil Gogoi’s Raijor Dal, Lurinjyoti Gogoi’s Assam Jatiya Parishad, Communist Party of India (Marxist), CPI(M-L), and All Party Hill Leaders Conference. The coming together of ‘three Gogois’ is expected to secure the backing of the influential Ahom community, which is largely concentrated in Upper Assam. The region comprises around 40 Assembly constituencies. Tea tribes play a decisive role in determining the winners in over 35 constituencies. If both Ahoms and tea tribes rally behind the Congress, the party can hope to sweep the election in this region. But that has to be a wishful thinking as of today.

It was the tea tribes’ shift toward the BJP that propelled it to power in 2016 and 2021. The Congress is going out of the way to woo them back. It has promised Scheduled Tribe status to six communities, including tea tribes and Ahoms. Rahul Gandhi has also promised to increase the wages of tea garden workers to Rs 450 per day, a hike of Rs 200 over their current wage.

Tea tribes also have a significant presence in many constituencies in Barak Valley, which has 13 Assembly........

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