After the BJP won the 2021 Assembly polls, the party leadership faced a difficult choice. While the party had secured victory under then chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal, Himanta Biswa Sarma emerged as a strong contender for the top post.
Also Read: Assam Cabinet full list: Here are leaders who took oath with Himanta Biswa Sarma as ministers
It took nearly 10 days for the BJP leadership to decide on the chief ministerial face, and Sarma took over as Assam chief minister at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Over the last five years, Himanta, known as a workaholic, evolved into the undisputed leader of the party in Assam and beyond. He was instrumental in bringing visible infrastructural changes to the state. BJP leaders had repeatedly made it clear that Sarma would get a second stint if the party returned to power.
During this period, Sarma also continued to bring several colleagues into the BJP fold. In the run-up to the polls, he courted controversy over his choice of words, but remained unfazed. Just before the elections, he brought in two Congress leaders — Bhupen Kumar Borah and Pradyut Bordoloi. Pradyut was given a ticket within 24 hours of joining the party.
Sarma also successfully navigated the insider-outsider debate that erupted after the BJP fielded Vijay Gupta from the Guwahati Central seat. The controversy stemmed from Gupta’s family roots in Bihar, though he was born and brought up in Assam.Also Read: From Congress strategist to BJP strongman: Himanta returns as Assam CM
Gupta, who had been the BJP’s organisational man in Assam for decades, was given the ticket after the party dropped ally Asom Gana Parishad’s (AGP) Ramendra Narayan Kalita.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, in a series of rallies before and after the announcement of poll dates, repeatedly declared that the BJP government led by Himanta Biswa Sarma would return to power and ensure that every infiltrator would be deported.
Sarma held nearly 240 rallies during the campaign. He camped in different constituencies and conducted roadshows in areas where feedback on BJP’s prospects was weak. In most of his rallies, nearly 90% of the attendees were women.
As BJP’s co-in-charge for the 2024 Jharkhand Assembly elections, Sarma witnessed the party’s defeat despite extensive campaigning. Last year, the BJP also faced an electoral setback in the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) polls, where its tally fell from nine seats in 2020 to five in 2025, though the party remains part of the BTC government.
In the 2026 Assembly elections, Sarma also campaigned extensively in West Bengal.
He piloted several flagship welfare schemes, including ‘Orunodoi’, aimed at women beneficiaries. Under the scheme, the state currently pays ₹1,250 every month to each beneficiary. Introduced during the Covid period in 2020 with ₹830 per month for 1.8 million women, the scheme now covers 4 million women. The BJP manifesto promised that if voted back to power, the payout would be increased to ₹3,000 and more women would be added to the direct benefit transfer scheme.
In March this year, Sarma distributed benefits under Orunodoi 3.0 in Guwahati, transferring ₹9,000 to 40 lakh beneficiaries under what the government described as the state’s largest-ever direct benefit transfer scheme. Women voters rallied strongly behind the BJP.
Sarma largely avoided campaigning in areas where Miya voters hold influence. ‘Miya’ is a pejorative term used for Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam whose ancestors had roots in Bangladesh. Muslims comprise around 34% of Assam’s 3.12 crore population, of which about 4% are indigenous Assamese Muslims, while the majority are Bengali-speaking Muslims.
Sarma also built a strong support base through eviction drives, with the government claiming to have recovered 1.5 lakh bighas of government and forest land from encroachment.
The BJP had won 60 seats in the 126-member Assembly in 2016 and repeated the tally in 2021, which later rose to 64. In this election, the BJP alone won 82 seats, while the NDA secured 102 seats overall.
Sarma’s political debut came under former Congress chief minister Hiteswar Saikia, while his public life was shaped during former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta’s leadership of the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), which spearheaded the six-year anti-foreigners movement from 1979 to 1985 that culminated in the Assam Accord.
From 2001 to 2012, Sarma was a trusted lieutenant of former chief minister Tarun Gogoi. From 2013 onwards, he led the dissident camp in the Congress, seeking a leadership change. When the Congress high command refused, he joined the BJP in 2015 and soon emerged as one of the party’s most prominent faces in the Northeast and a key Hindutva leader.
Ahead of the 2021 Assembly polls, Sarma had promised to waive microfinance loans taken by women. Soon after coming to power, his government introduced the Assam Microfinance Incentive and Relief Scheme (AMFIRS) 2021, under which lakhs of women received relief from repaying loans owed to microfinance institutions. The total relief package was estimated at around ₹12,000 crore. This created a strong support base among women voters.
Over the last five years, the Assam government also provided nearly 1.7 lakh government jobs.
Sarma further expanded his support among the youth and earned the popular title of “mama” (uncle).
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Sarma’s mother Mrinalini Devi said that he had participated in the Assam Agitation, also known as the Assam Movement, when he was nine years old.
The anti-foreigners movement eventually culminated in the Assam Accord in 1985.
