Himanta Hustle: Man Of Many Words

In Assam, even a copy of the Constitution can become a political statement, depending on who holds it.

On May 17, 2024, Assam Chief Minister and, in some ways, the eastern state’s chief political provocateur, Himanta Biswa Sarma, turned the colour of a Constitution book jacket into the centre of a bitter political row.

“The original copy of the Constitution of India has a blue cover. The original Chinese Constitution has a red cover. Does Rahul carry a Chinese Constitution? We will need to verify,” Sarma had declared.

It is a curious claim for a man trained in political science and law. Yet, for Sarma, who holds a degree in law and has completed his master’s in political science, provocation is as much the point as the statement itself.

It did not take long for Sarma’s claim to unravel. Fact-checkers clarified that Rahul Gandhi was holding a pocket Constitution published by Lucknow’s Eastern Book Company. As Gandhi invoked the Constitution against the BJP in the run-up to the 2024 General Elections, Sarma had turned the same book into a political weapon, sharpening a style of polarisation often associated with the BJP’s Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

Just more than a decade ago, Sarma was used to speaking in politically contrasting idioms. “In Assam, water runs through the water pipe, but in Gujarat the blood of Muslims flows through these pipes....you pray to Allah. Please make Bhupen Bora winner in Tezpur, please save India too, so that this type of killer could never be the Prime Minister of India....You pray it during your namaz also,” the same man told a political rally on March 29, 2014. The remark triggered censure and fetched a notice from the Election Commission of India (ECI) for violation of the Model Code of Conduct, seeking his explanation.

Seventeen months later, on August 21, 2015, Sarma joined the BJP, despite having been named a “key suspect” in a corruption case involving a US consultancy firm, Louis Berger, by its leaders weeks earlier. His induction, long in the works, reflected the party’s calculation ahead of 2016. The gamble paid off. The BJP won 60 seats and formed its first government in Assam, with Sarma, a recent entrant, entrusted with key portfolios, including finance, health, education and public works.

Now, 12 years after he joined the BJP, the script has flipped. Sarma’s speeches increasingly target Muslims. During an election rally, he posted on X: “The very machines which are showering flowers today will inflict hell & fury upon infiltrators and encroachers in the coming days.” On February 7, the BJP Assam handle shared an AI-generated video titled “Point Blank”, showing him aiming a gun at men in skullcaps, with “No Mercy” and “Foreigner Free Assam”. It was taken down after backlash, but one figure resembled Gaurav Gogoi, son of Tarun Gogoi. In January 2026, he said “Miya Muslims” should be “troubled by any means”, adding that pressure would force them to leave Assam. Sarma also said BJP workers had been told to file bulk ‘Form 7’ complaints. In Assam, Bengali-speaking Muslims are often called “Miyas” and labelled “illegal infiltrators”.

There is a childhood photograph where Sarma, then around 10, stands just behind Assam Movement leaders Prafulla Kumar Mahanta and Bhrigu Kumar Phukan, recalled Rasel Hussain of Raijor Dal. Born in 1969 into a Brahmin family in Jorhat, Sarma grew up in a household shaped by government service. The middle of five brothers, his father worked in the state’s industry department.

Hussain says: “Even as a child, he was very smart. He would move freely among senior leaders. He was never shy. When he was 10, he would pass messages for the top brass of the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU). He could slip through because he was a child.” Mahanta and Phukan were the first leaders Sarma aligned with. In time, he would leave them both behind.

Days after the 2016 results, the BJP moved quickly to form the North East Democratic Alliance, with Amit Shah appointing Sarma as convenor. Tasked with expanding the party’s footprint, Sarma played a key role in its rise across Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Tripura.

In 2021, despite Sarbananda Sonowal leading the campaign, Sarma’s influence proved decisive. After the BJP retained power, he secured backing from a majority of MLAs and replaced Sonowal as chief minister. Among recent BJP leaders, Sarma stands out as a crossover figure who not only shifted camps but consolidated power after the switch.

“Sarma fits neatly into the BJP’s polarising mould, even though he is regarded as an ‘outsider’. Every step he takes is geared towards reassuring the RSS that he is one of their own—often going the extra mile to demonstrate his commitment to the organisation,” according to a senior Congress leader.

To understand how Sarma rose to become the most powerful man in Assam, one has to understand Assam’s political churning in the 1980s. He won the prestigious Cotton College student union elections under the AASU banner and served thrice as general secretary in 1988, 1989 and 1991, even as he was completing his master’s in political science. He went on to earn an LLB by 1995. There were also hints about his alleged links with the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). He also faced two Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention Act) (TADA) cases, but also developed proximity to the Chief Minister Hiteshwar Saikia. Sarma was eventually released under a general amnesty granted to 650 ULFA cadres by Saikia in July 1991 to secure the release of 14 government officials kidnapped by the ULFA.

What happened next became a template for his career. Both cases were eventually closed, after records reportedly went missing.

Sarma first contested in 1996, reportedly at Hiteshwar Saikia’s urging, against Bhrigu Kumar Phukan. He lost, but later won in 2001 by 10,000 votes after Phukan shifted parties. His candidature was initially resisted by Tarun Gogoi, who saw him as Saikia’s man. Gogoi relented later.

In June 2001, as his career gathered pace, he married Riniki Bhuyan, a tennis player who later founded Pride East Enter­tainments. Within the Congress, Sarma rose quickly, becoming a minister of state in 2002 and a cabinet minister by 2006, handling health, finance, education and public works portfolios. After Gogoi’s surgery in 2010, he took on much of the government’s day-to-day work, regularly interacting with MLAs.

He led the Congress campaign in 2011, delivering 79 seats, and came to see himself as Gogoi’s successor. Instead, Gogoi began promoting his son Gaurav. The years also brought controversy. Sarma was named in the Saradha chit fund case after Sudipto Sen alleged that he had “taken from us not less than Rs 3 crore”. The CBI raided his residence in 2014; he denied the charges.

Sarma’s national links deepened as he briefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and interacted with senior leaders, including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Digvijay Singh and Ahmed Patel. By 2012, he began dissenting openly, claiming the support of 58 MLAs. The Congress sent its top leaders—Azad, C.P. Joshi, Motilal Vora and Mallikarjun Kharge—to resolve the crisis, with many backing Sarma for leadership.

Rahul Gandhi, however, refused to yield to “pressure or blackmail” and stayed with Gogoi. Sarma, despite efforts to meet him in Delhi, was not given time. The rejection stung, especially after he had helped ensure Sanjaya Sinh’s Rajya Sabha election from Assam.

In July 2014, Sarma resigned, with around 38 MLAs, telling Governor JB Patnaik they would act as a “constructive opposition” within the Assembly. “He wanted to become the chief minister after three terms,” says former Congress Lakhimpur MP Balin Kuli, “but the high command did not give him the opportunity”.

Then came the Louis Berger crisis.

In July 2015, the US-based consultancy firm admitted to paying nearly $1 million in bribes for projects in Assam and Goa. Sarma then oversaw the concerned department. A CBI probe stalled after key files went missing in 2017. The investigating officer on the case was later suspended and arrested for disclosing classified information through an RTI reply.

Siddhartha Bhattacharya, then BJP state president, is candid about how the political crossover was engineered. “Ram Madhav made the blueprint. It was me who carried out that blueprint.” In 2014, the party, preparing for the 2016 Assembly elections, believed it had an “80 per cent chance” of forming the government. “We wanted 100 per cent assurance of forming the government… so we had to bring him into the BJP fold.” To achieve this, BJP needed to break its rival.

The BJP believed a division within the Congress would help them. Sarma had reached out to the BJP’s national general secretary and North-East in-charge, Ram Madhav, through his sources. “As a party worker, I followed the leadership’s direction,” Bhattacharya said.

There was resistance within the BJP too, to Sarma’s entry. Sonowal was reluctant, but Bhattacharya, in the middle of his own power struggle with Sonowal, was not. Bhattacharya believed that Sarma’s induction would shift the power centre in his favour.

He and Sarma soon met Union Home Minister Amit Shah. According to media reports at the time, Shah, after the meeting, agreed on a rethink of Sarma’s ‘tainted’ trysts with the law. Bhattacharya argued there was no conviction or proven charge and the party moved ahead with his induction.

Sarma was appointed convener of the party’s election management committee. Bhattacharya, who has in 2026 been denied a ticket himself for Gauhati East, reflects without obvious bitterness: “He is a very capable man. He understands the political reality of Assam, especially the demographic challenges we face. Himanta was my junior at Cotton College. He was a very good debater.”

When he was health minister in the Sonowal-led government, allegations surfaced over a PPE kit procurement contract awarded during the COVID-19 pandemic to a company linked to his wife. It was alleged that the firm received an urgent order at inflated rates and supplied only a fraction of the required quantity. Akhil Gogoi’s Raijor Dal described it as the “tip of the iceberg”. Both Sarma and his wife denied any wrongdoing.

Within two and a half months of Sarma joining the BJP, nine Congress MLAs switched sides at a function held at the party’s state office in the presence of Bhattacharya and Madhav. Since then, at least 18 more have joined, including Pijush Hazarika, with Bhupen Borah and Pradyut Bordoloi among the latest entrants.

Sarma had cultivated strong relationships across the Congress, positioning himself to destabilise the party from within, which, a leader said, aligned with the RSS’ objectives. According to the same leader, despite his public posturing, Sarma’s value to the BJP lies in his ability to fracture the Congress using these networks. His personal feud with Rahul Gandhi has further strengthened his standing within a sceptical BJP and RSS camp.

Several leaders also noted that while he publicly projects hostility towards minorities and Miya Muslims, he maintains a cordial backchannel with Muslim leaders and works to keep them on his side.

Adding to this, Hiren Gohain, a senior Assamese social scientist who has long feuded with Sarma, notes his ability to build networks of agents and informers within rival camps. “He believes that political power is secured through total attention to every detail in the social, ethnic and communal bases of power.”

This was evident when three MLAs from the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), the third-largest political outfit in Assam, backed the NDA’s third Rajya Sabha candidate in March, signing nomination papers for UPPL chief Pramod Boro, who has since joined the Congress alliance. Assam Jatiya Parishad leader Lurinjyoti Gogoi called the AIUDF the BJP’s “108 [Emergency] helpline”.

While Sarma targets Bengali-origin Muslims, his government set up seven sub-committees for the “development for indigenous Assamese Muslims”. He maintains they are not evicted, even as homes were cleared near Kamrup recently.

Soon after he joined the BJP, Sarma, in an interview, cited a Supreme Court-commissioned report by senior advocate Upamanyu Hazarika on infiltration and Assam’s demography.

“Himanta referred to this report and said that it opened his eyes to the migration problem,” Hazarika recalled, adding that Sarma cited it as one of the reasons for joining the BJP. Hazarika noted the irony pointedly: between 2009 and 2014, Sarma had himself served as the minister responsible for implementing the Assam Accord.

Hazarika, who has authored the book NRC: Turning Hope to Despair, is critical of how Sarma subsequently handled the migration question—arguing that instead of focusing on the National Register of Citizens, Sarma sidelined the issue and pursued delimitation as his primary response.

Hazarika has known Sarma since around 1998–99, when Sarma was frequently present in the chamber of AK Phukan, before Phukan became Advocate General. He said he had met Sarma on several occasions since, but consciously avoided engaging with him. “He is like Bhasmasur,” Hazarika said, “whoever he comes in contact with is subverted and destroyed. So, it is best to keep a distance.”

Speaking about Sarma, Stephen Lakra, a former president of the All Adivasi Students’ Association of Assam and now with the Congress, said Sarma “thrives by creating problems” so that he can fish in troubled waters.

According to Lakra, after becoming Chief Minister, Sarma sought to create divisions between recognised tribal communities and those seeking tribal status. Existing tribes include Bodos, Karbis, Misings and Rabhas, while communities such as the Ahoms, Rajvanshis, Morans, Motaks and Chutias have been demanding inclusion in the Scheduled Tribes list.

“He instigates them to launch movements, then calls them for talks and negotiations,” Lakra said. “At the same time, he encourages existing tribal groups to oppose their inclusion.”

Lakra added that this approach has created a climate of fear and division. “He has made everyone fight each other. That is what I have understood.”

Sarma’s efforts to bring more Congress members into the BJP have also triggered discontent among long-time party workers who feel sidelined. Former state vice-president Jayanta Das, associated with the BJP since 1995, quit after being denied a ticket for Dispur. The ticket went instead to Pradyut Bordoloi, who switched from the Congress just ahead of nominations.

“We are all long-standing BJP members, but Himanta doesn’t trust anyone. He only trusts people he has brought in from the Congress. All the others are treated badly. All the important roles are entrusted only to former Congress members. As an eyewash, he will name one person from the Sangathan (organisation) at the top, but all the others are his people,” said Das, now contesting as an independent from Dispur.

A Congress leader said that while Sarma engages in performative politics, he also relies on loyalists drawn from his two decades in the Congress.

Hiren Gohain offered an unsentimental assessment: “He is highly ambitious and stakes everything on reaching the next higher rung. As if possessed. Driven mainly by lust for money and power. Since he has no scruples, he is prepared to sup with the devil for that.”

Harekrishna Deka, former Director General of Police of Assam, whose team once arrested him as a young man, remained equally blunt: “Politically mature, but unscrupulous.”

Ashlin Mathew is senior associate editor, Outlook. She is based in Delhi