Guwahati: Redrawn constituency boundaries in Assam reduced the number of Muslim-majority seats from 35 to 22, reshaping traditional Muslim voter strongholds and influencing the outcome of the first assembly election held after the 2023 delimitation exercise.While the total number of assembly seats remained unchanged at 126, the delimitation had a clear effect on representation, keeping the number of Muslim MLAs below 25, while Hindu and tribal MLAs together crossed the 100 mark.CM Himanta Biswa Sarma had repeatedly said the delimitation would ensure representatives from indigenous communities held more than 100 of the 126 seats, while Muslims would be confined to around 22 seats. The post-election composition matched that projection.With Muslim voters remaining decisive in 22 constituencies after delimitation, the contest in those seats was largely expected to be between Congress and AIUDF. The opposition performed poorly overall, but Congress improved its position significantly within the Muslim-majority segment.The 2026 Assam assembly elections were fought on an altered political map shaped by the 2023 delimitation exercise, which redrew constituency boundaries in Assam. The exercise broke up several long-standing Congress strongholds with high concentrations of Muslim voters in Lower, Central and Southern Assam, and reconfigured voter demographics for the first time in nearly five decades.Himanta said the exercise had made indigenous communities the decisive factor in 103 seats, up from 90 earlier.This new electoral geography shifted the balance of power and compelled parties to recalibrate their strategies. In the run-up to the election, several Muslim leaders from the AIUDF joined the AGP to contest in many of the 22 seats where Muslim voters remained a decisive factor post delimitation. The BJP, which had limited prospects in these constituencies, appeared to hope that the AGP, with its relatively secular image, could secure at least some of these seats for the NDA. The strategy, however, did not yield significant results. The delimitation exercise reduced the weight of constituencies where Bengali-origin Muslim voters had long been electorally decisive, cutting the number of Muslim-majority seats from 35 to 22. At the same time, it expanded the influence of tribal communities: the number of seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes rose from 16 to 19, and Scheduled Caste reserved seats increased from eight to nine.Assam’s politics has long been shaped by the issue of migration from Bangladesh. Under the Assam Accord of 1985, March 25, 1971, was fixed as the cut-off date for citizenship. But there have been allegations of continued illegal influx even after that. The BJP has consistently argued that Assam’s politics should be determined by indigenous communities rather than migrant-origin Muslim populations.
