Assam Assembly Elections | Sonowal scores higher than Sarma, despite the latter making steady gains

While the Finance Minister’s popularity is largely in Lower Assam, the outgoing CM is ahead in Upper Assam and Barak Valley

The election campaign in Assam was marked by speculation of BJP leader and Finance Minister as the Chief Minister after the election, so much so that apart from the BJP’s official campaign song featuring Sonowal and Narendra Modi, there was a parallel song, ‘Ahise Himanta Ahise’ announcing the coming of Mr. Sarma, that also went viral at BJP rallies. This tussle between the two leaders was perhaps one of the key reasons why the BJP leadership decided to stay away from naming its chief ministerial candidate before the election. In this scenario, it may be important to look at exactly how popular Mr. Sonowal and Mr. Sarma actually were in these elections and among which regions and sections. Lokniti-CSDS’ post-poll survey data offers some interesting insights in this regard. The survey found that as far as the chief ministerial preference is concerned, Mr. Sonowal continued to be quite ahead of Mr. Sarma in popularity, even though the gap between the two leaders narrowed compared to five years ago. On being asked an open-ended question about who they would like to see as the next chief minister, about one in four (23%) respondents named Mr. Sonowal as their top choice (Table 1). Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi was the second most preferred leader at 12% (largely on the back of Muslim support) and Mr. Sarma was close behind in the third spot as the choice of 11%. So comparing strictly between, Mr. Sonowal and Mr. Sarma, the former was twice as favoured for the post of CM as the latter.