New Delhi: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma won the Jalukbari assembly seat on Monday, defeating his nearest rival and Congress debutant Bidisha Neog by nearly 89,500 votes, according to the Election Commission data.
This victory gives Sarma a sixth term as MLA. Jalukbari falls under the Kamrup metropolitan district and the Guwahati Lok Sabha segment.
According to the Election Commission of India’s numbers after the conclusion of counting of votes in Jalukbari, Sarma won 1,27,151 votes, while Neog got 37,717 votes.
The electoral constituency has a mix of ethnic and religious communities. According to the 2011 census, Hindus constitute about 85 percent of the population, while Muslims and Christians constitute 12 and 2 percent, respectively.
Apart from Assamese voters, there is a significant portion of Bengali Hindu voters that favours Sarma.
In the 2026 elections, he centred his campaign around youth welfare, development, infrastructure, implementing Uniform Civil Code in Assam and taking action against illegal immigration.
Sarma has been representing the Jalukbari Assembly constituency since 2001. He contested from the constituency as a member of the Congress party until 2014, and has been with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 2015.
Before entering politics, he earned a law degree from Gauhati University in 1994 and trained to become a solicitor. He later practised at the Gauhati High Court from 1996 to 2001.
Fighting the 2001 elections as a Congress candidate, Sarma defeated the Asom Gana Parishad leader. He was re-elected in 2006 and 2011.
With the Congress party between 2002 and 2014, he held several key portfolios in the state such as the minister of state for agriculture, planning and development, finance, health, education.
In 2015, he left the Congress and resigned from the cabinet over political differences with former chief minister Tarun Gogoi. He joined the Bharatiya Janata Party soon after.
After joining the BJP, he was re-elected from the Jalukbari constituency for a fourth term and was inducted into the cabinet, holding key portfolios in the party’s first government in the Northeast.
In 2021, following the resignation of former chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal, he was unanimously chosen by the party to take over as chief minister.
In the 2021 assembly elections, Sarma secured 78.4 percent votes in the constituency, winning by a margin of 1,30,762 votes.
The rivalry between Himanta Biswa Sarma and Gaurav Gogoi, the state Congress president and son of former Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, has come to define the political climate in the state.
Jorhat MP Gaurav Gogoi has been serving as the deputy leader of opposition in Lok Sabha.
While Sarma has been vocal about illegal immigration in the state, Gogoi ran his party’s campaign around targeting the ruling dispensation around local issues, criticising public infrastructure and the BJP’s policy against immigration.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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