NEW DELHI: The Congress party has ramped up its efforts to take on the BJP’s ten-year rule in Assam, unveiling an elaborate election blueprint ahead of the 2026 Assembly polls slated for mid-March to April next year. Senior leaders at both the state and national levels have been holding intensive discussions to evaluate on-ground conditions, strengthen organisational networks, and roll out an assertive outreach strategy aimed at rebuilding voter confidence across the state.
Earlier this week, top Assam Congress leaders met Indian National Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge at his New Delhi residence to assess the political situation and finalise a strategic plan for the state. The meeting was attended by Gaurav Gogoi, Pradyut Bordoloi, Ripun Bora, Bhupen Kumar Borah, Rakibul Hussain, Congress General Secretary (Organisation) K.C. Venugopal, and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi—reflecting the high level of attention the central leadership is giving to Assam ahead of next year’s elections.
Party insiders revealed that the Congress has crafted a robust plan to directly engage with the people of Assam. A major component of this strategy is a statewide ‘voter outreach campaign’, which kicked off on December 5 in Dibrugarh. Covering all 126 Assembly constituencies, the campaign will see five teams of senior leaders travelling across the state to collect public feedback on the party’s proposed 2026 manifesto and underscore what they claim are the shortcomings of the BJP government.
The programme will also focus on interactions with employees from crucial departments such as health, education, and panchayati raj—groups that have been protesting for months over unpaid dues and alleged government pressure. A party functionary said government employees form the “backbone of administration” and their concerns must be addressed through “dialogue, respect, and immediate action, not intimidation”.
Gaurav Gogoi, who assumed charge of the Assam unit earlier this year, faces a significant challenge in reviving the party’s fortunes. Congress has been struggling in the state since it lost power in 2016. In the 2021 Assembly elections, the party won just 29 of 126 seats compared to the BJP’s 60. Its performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls was also weak, winning only three of Assam’s 14 seats.
Pradyut Bordoloi said that his discussions with the party high command centred around strengthening the party’s organisational base at the booth and village levels. Leaders also examined ground reports from multiple districts and explored strategies to present a united Opposition front against the BJP. The ongoing controversy around the Special Revision (SR) of the electoral roll was another major focus of the deliberations.
Notably, the SR exercise has become a flashpoint in Assam’s political discourse. Unlike the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) underway in several other states—which requires voters to submit forms and documents—the SR in Assam involves only door-to-door verification by Booth Level Officers, without any document submission. Opposition parties fear this could lead to the addition of “outsiders” to the voter list, with some regional parties calling it a “backdoor NRC”. Several petitions challenging the move have already been filed in the Supreme Court.
“We are keeping a close watch on the SR. There are real concerns about outsiders being added to the electoral rolls. The government chose SR to bypass the NRC process, which had excluded millions of Hindus earlier,” a senior Congress leader told The Sunday Guardian.
Moreover, Gogoi has pushed for the immediate adoption of machine-readable electoral rolls, full digitisation, and centralised, software-driven voter list preparation to eliminate human errors. He has also demanded that the Election Commission publicly clarify any technical or administrative barriers preventing the use of modern, secure electoral roll systems.
A political analyst who closely tracks Assam politics said the Congress is following a strategy similar to the one that helped it win the 2018 polls in Chhattisgarh. T.S. Singh Deo, a senior leader from the state who played a crucial role in crafting the Chhattisgarh manifesto, is likely to be involved in the Assam outreach as well. He added, with just a few months left before the state goes to the polls, the Congress’s multi-layered approach—rooted in organisational strengthening, focused public engagement, and demands for greater electoral transparency—signals a determined attempt to reclaim political ground in one of the Northeast’s most important states.
