“Should I ask for their votes? As of now, we are not thinking of taking those votes. That is why I have not even campaigned in 25 constituencies where immigrant Bengali speaking Muslims have a large influence. If they vote voluntarily, that’s a different issue,” said Sarma, in his recent interview with The Economic Times.
A Chief Minister who governs over a state where Muslims constitute 34 percent of the population has announced, without shame or hesitation, that he has not bothered to campaign in 25 constituencies where they live in significant numbers. He does not want their mandate. He does not seek their consent. And by extension, he does not consider himself accountable to them — not as voters, not as citizens, not as human beings with constitutional rights equal to anyone else in this republic.
These are not the words of any fringe political leader or an anonymous troll on social media. These are the words of Himanta Biswa Sarma — the sitting Chief Minister of Assam — spoken openly, on record, with the casual confidence of a man who knows that in the India of 2026, publicly declaring an entire religious community beneath your electoral consideration is not a scandal. It is a strategy.
He is now also confident that his BJP-led alliance will sweep between 95 and 102 of Assam’s 126 Assembly seats when the state votes on April 9.
And in the same breath, he claims to be manufacturing a “nationalist feeling” among the very Muslim community his government has relentlessly persecuted.
What “Nationalist Feeling” Actually Looks Like
When Sarma speaks of cultivating “nationalist feeling” among Indian Muslims, he means something very specific: the coerced compliance of a community that has been beaten into exhaustion.
Between May 2021, when Sarma became Chief Minister, and early 2026, more than 22,000 structures were demolished and over 20,000 Muslim families evicted — the overwhelming majority being Bengali-speaking Muslims. These are not statistics. These are hundreds of thousands of human beings — mothers, children, the elderly — who had their homes and livelihoods destroyed by bulldozers deployed by the state while Sarma’s supporters cheered.
This story was originally published in theobserverpost.com. Read the full story here.