Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday paid tribute to iconic Assamese singer Zubeen Garg in his monthly radio programme, Mann ki Baat, saying that the late singer was a shining gem of Assam’s cultural heritage. He will always live in the hearts of the people, said the PM, posting his remarks on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter).
Zubeen had allegedly drowned while swimming in a sea in Singapore, triggering a wave of shock and grief back home.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma quoted PM Modi’s ‘X’ post and added that Zubeen was the state’s crown jewel and his contributions to the cultural landscape of Assam and India would always be remembered. The BJP leaders’ acknowledgement of Zubeen’s contributions to the Assamese and Indian culture is a fitting tribute to the great, iconoclastic singer. In 2018, the late singer had advised Assamese athlete Hima Das to eat beef for strength.
In 2019, he declared that he was a Brahmin, but he had snapped his janeu or sacred thread. These Brahmins should be killed, said the singer, triggering a huge row.
His comment that Lord Krishna was not God but a man drew similar reactions. “I have no caste, no religion, no God. I am free. I am Kanchenjunga,” he said it on several occasions.
The celebrated musician wasn’t afraid of taking political stands. He supported those opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. In his last interview, telecast after his death, he spoke about how the anti-CAA movement fizzed out after he took ill at the peak of the protests. Many of these things that Zubeen said might not have pleased BJP leaders like Sarma. But there was nothing any politician could do about a singer who enjoyed a cult status in Assam. To the Assamese, he was not just a singer or musician or an iconoclast who spoke his mind.
He was also a wonderful human being with a heart of gold—someone who adopted 15 underprivileged children, someone who would just dig into his pocket to give out all his money whenever someone approached him for help in the streets and a lot more. That should explain why every politician across ideological and political prism has been scrambling to be seen as a Zubeen fan.
Zubeen at centre of political discourse
The late singer is suddenly at the centre of the political discourse in poll-bound Assam. It is because CM Sarma has sought to explain the BJP’s loss in the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) election in the context of Zubeen’s death. Before we come to discuss why the late signer is so crucial to the BJP’s fortune in the 2026 election, let’s look at the BTC poll results.
It’s a big setback to the BJP, with its tally coming down to five this year from nine in 2020, in the 40-member body. CM Sarma probably saw it coming. A day before the counting started on Friday, the Assam CM posted on X: “BJP had strong momentum in the Bodoland Territorial Council elections, but due to the tragic demise of #BelovedZubeen, we withdrew from the campaign. This may have adversely affected our performance, but I am not worried. Tomorrow, the NDA will win.”
Zubeen died on 19 September, and the council election had been scheduled on 22 September. Sarma had campaigned extensively across the Bodoland territorial region—comprising the five districts of Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa, Udalguri, and Tamulpur—before the iconic singer’s death. It’s so unlike Sarma to make excuses for failures in advance. Two more days of campaigning wouldn’t have changed the BJP’s fortune drastically in the polls.
Also read: Muslims at garba—whenever a festival becomes exclusionary, we lose a piece of India
What is worrying the BJP?
What must worry the BJP is the victory of its ally-turned-adversary-turned-possible ally, the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) led by Hagrama Mohilary, that won 28 seats in the council. In 2020, despite winning 17 seats, Mohilary saw himself marginalised and abandoned by their ally BJP, which chose to have a post-poll alliance with the United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL) to prop up Promod Boro as the chief executive member of the BTC.
The development had prompted Mohilary to join the Congress-led Opposition bloc in the 2021 Assembly election. The BPF could retain only four of the 12 seats that it held in the previous Assembly.
Now that the BPF has reclaimed the Bodoland territorial region—accounting for 16 of the 126 seats—would Mohilary like to align with the BJP or the Congress in the next Assembly election?
On Saturday, Himanta Sarma posted on ‘X’: “I congratulate Hagrama Mohilary and the BPF on their victory in #BTCPolls. The BPF is an ally of the NDA, and all 40 seats of BTC are now with NDA partners with Congress reduced to ZERO seats. That’s the performance of their tainted leader.” The fact was that the BJP, the BPF and the UPPL all contested separately in the BTC election. Sarma is not entirely wrong, though. That’s the nature of alliances in the north-east. Regional outfits can’t but court the ruling party at the Centre. Mohilary will need to be on the right side of both Dispur and Delhi. So, don’t be surprised if some BJP members find a place in the Mohilary-led administration.
However, there is no guarantee for the BPF and the BJP coming together in the 2026 Assembly election, though. After the 2021 Assembly election, the BPF had started warming up to the BJP. There were symbolic gestures like the BPF supporting the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, but there was no meeting of the hearts. In Kokrajhar Lok Sabha constituency, for instance, the BJP campaigned hard for the UPPL candidate to defeat the BPF.
On Saturday, responding to Sarma’s claim that Mohilary had come to meet him at 4 am on the day of the results, the BPF chief said that he doesn’t even wake up at 4 am. The writing on the wall is not difficult to read. Mohilary may choose to embrace Sarma for now, but the BJP can’t take the BPF’s partnership in the 2026 polls for granted. The Bodoland territorial region may send only 16 MLAs to the 126-member Assembly, but it may become crucial in a closely contested election.
Sarma can’t celebrate the fact that the Congress drew a blank in the BTC. In fact, the Congress performed poorly in these elections in the past: zero seats in 2010, zero seats in 2015, and one in 2020. That is to stress the point that even when the Congress was in power in 2010 and 2015, it drew a blank in the BTC.
Also read: ‘I am Assam,’ Zubeen Garg had said. He was the soundtrack to our lives
Congress’s blunder
Yes, the results do show that the Congress is still far from ready to replace the BJP in Assam. Just see how the Congress’s national president Mallikarjun Kharge scored an own-goal in Assam by promising compensation to those evicted by the Sarma government. Anybody who understands the sensitivity of the illegal immigration issue in Assam would know how the Congress has played right into Sarma’s hands.
Gaurav Gogoi, the Congress’s face in Assam, must be pulling his hair in frustration. He has chosen to keep mum on this issue. He, however, knows that he can’t steer clear of this issue with Sarma making the eviction drive the principal plank and Kharge committing the blunder. And when Gogoi does make his and his party’s stand on eviction clear, he can’t afford to take Kharge’s line.
As it is, you can’t blame Sarma for betting big on the Congress. He is too smart a politician to be complacent, though. He knows he has everything going for him—enduring personal popularity, welfare schemes, ghuspaithiya narrative, and, of course, the Congress’s unflinching support in so many ways. But he also knows how a tinge of scepticism about his personal or the government’s commitment to concluding a fair investigation into Zubeen’s death can be a decisive factor in the 2026 polls.
Just look at the CM’s timeline on ‘X’. He is constantly reaching out to Zubeen’s fans.
On Saturday, he informed that the Assam police had issued Look Out Notices against Shyamkanu Mahanta, chief organiser of the North East India Festival that Zubeen was attending, and Siddharth Sharma, the singer’s manager. “They will not be able to exit India via any airport, sea port or land border,” wrote Sarma.
These tough talks may work for now, but such grandstanding may prove to be counterproductive as the polls are six months away. How Sarma handles the Zubeen probe and what the people make of it will have a significant bearing on the latter’s voting behaviour early next year.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)