Assam votes counted as BJP seeks historic hat-trick amid exit poll dominance

Assam woke on May 4 to the machinery of democracy grinding into motion. Across 40 counting centers scattered through 35 districts, election officials were preparing to unseal electronic voting machines that held the fates of 722 candidates competing for 126 assembly seats. The security presence at the Jorhat counting center had been visibly reinforced. By 8 a.m., party agents would begin arriving at strongrooms—including the one at Maniram Dewan Trade Centre in Guwahati, where five legislative assembly constituencies' votes awaited tallying. The day would determine whether the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance could achieve something it had not done in Assam in recent memory: a third consecutive electoral victory.

Exit polls had painted a picture of overwhelming dominance. Seven different polling agencies released projections in the hours before counting began, and their consensus was stark. Axis My India predicted 88 to 100 seats for the NDA, with Congress-led opposition managing only 24 to 36. Matrize showed 85 to 95 for the alliance, 25 to 32 for Congress. JVC, Kamakhya Analytics, and Poll Diary all clustered in similar ranges—the NDA consistently projected to win between 68 and 101 seats, leaving the opposition in the 15 to 39 range. The BJP alone, contesting 90 of the 126 seats alongside its partners Asom Gana Parishad and Bodoland People's Front, was internally projecting it would win more than 80 of those seats. State party president Dilip Saikia suggested the full alliance could approach the 100-seat threshold.

The ruling party's confidence was audible in every statement released before the count began. Pradyut Bordoloi, the BJP candidate from Dispur, spoke of an "overwhelming" voter mandate for the party and its allies. He predicted that by evening, Assam would have delivered a "very firm" verdict in favor of a successive BJP-led government under Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Union ministers amplified the message nationally. Piyush Goyal told reporters that the NDA was set for an "unprecedented victory" across multiple states, singling out Assam as a place where the BJP would retain power. Arjun Ram Meghwal expressed similar confidence, pointing to the exit poll projections as validation of the party's strength.

The opposition, however, rejected this narrative entirely. Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi argued that exit polls had been wrong before and would be wrong again. He pointed to what he called "silent voters"—people who might not have signaled their true preference to pollsters but would reveal it in the actual count. The Congress-led alliance, he suggested, had momentum that the surveys were missing. The party also leveled a more serious charge: that the BJP had engaged in voter suppression tactics during the electoral roll revision process, and that Chief Minister Sarma's recent comments about "polarisation" and targeting a group referred to as "Miyas" represented an attempt to manipulate the electorate through divisive rhetoric. These allegations had triggered a political row in the state.

Both camps had largely abandoned public campaigning by May 3, the day before counting. Instead, the BJP held virtual strategy reviews with candidates and party leaders, with Sarma and Saikia assessing their readiness for the count. The Congress, under Gogoi's direction, conducted similar internal meetings while publicly maintaining that the party remained optimistic despite what the exit polls suggested. It was the posture of two organizations preparing for very different outcomes—one bracing for confirmation of dominance, the other betting that the actual votes would tell a different story than the surveys.

As morning broke on May 4, the machinery was in place. The strongrooms were secured. The agents representing each of the competing parties had taken their positions. In a few hours, the electronic machines would be opened, and the ballots they had recorded would be translated into seat counts. For Himanta Biswa Sarma, a third term hung in the balance. For the Congress and its allies, it represented a last chance to reclaim power in a state they had once dominated. For Assam itself, the results would shape not just who governed, but the tenor of politics in the state for years to come.