Guwahati: Following the delimitation exercise, the number of assembly seats in Guwahati increased from four to five, yet the electoral outcome remained unchanged, with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) once again sweeping the city. In the 2021 assembly election, all four Guwahati seats had gone to the NDA, underscoring its continued dominance in the urban capital.
Key Battles in Dispur and Jalukbari
In this election, attention was sharply focused on Dispur, where the capital seat turned into a high-profile battle between defectors from opposing political camps, and on Jalukbari, from where Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma sought a sixth consecutive term. Pradyut Bordoloi, a former minister in ex-CM Tarun Gogoi's cabinet who joined the BJP by quitting Congress days before the polls, was pitted in the prestigious Dispur constituency, which includes the state capital. He faced Congress candidate Mira Borthakur Goswami, who had joined the Congress in 2021 after being expelled from the BJP in 2018 for alleged anti-party activities. Bordoloi, the sitting MP from Nagaon, defeated Goswami by a margin of over 49,000 votes, accumulating over one lakh votes out of a total of over 2.43 lakh votes cast in the constituency.
On the other hand, Himanta Biswa Sarma won his home constituency of Jalukbari for the sixth consecutive term. He made his electoral debut in the 1996 assembly elections but lost to AGP candidate Bhrigu Kumar Phukan. This time, Sarma secured the seat by a margin of over 89,000 votes.
Guwahati Central: A Charged Narrative
Guwahati Central remained the most animated theatre of the campaign, with the contest dominated throughout by a charged narrative around Assamese-speaking versus Hindi-speaking identity. The BJP fielded its 70-year-old loyal guard, Vijay Kumar Gupta, against whom the Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP), an ally in the Congress-led opposition alliance, pitted Kunki Chowdhury, aged 27. Both candidates were first-time contestants. From deepfake attacks to police summons, Kunki was at the epicentre of Assam's political storm, with CM Sarma dragging her mother's name into false charges of beef consumption. On Monday, Gupta won the seat with a margin of over 61,000 votes.
New Guwahati and Dimoria Seats
BJP's state general secretary Diplu Ranjan Sarmah, who won the Samaguri bypoll in 2024 after it became vacant following the election of MLA Rakibul Hussain to the Lok Sabha that year, contested the New Guwahati constituency against Congress candidate Santanu Bora. Sarmah won by a margin of over 47,000 votes.
Dimoria (SC), the new seat created by the delimitation exercise, was given by the BJP to its ally AGP, which fielded Tapan Das against Congress' Kishor Kumar Baruah. Das defeated Baruah by a margin of over 65,000 votes. "I will be indebted to the love and blessings of the people of Dimoria," Das said following his win.
The NDA's clean sweep in Guwahati reinforces its stronghold in the urban areas of Assam, despite the addition of a new seat through delimitation.
