Seat that gave Himanta Biswa Sarma his biggest heartburn, and prompted dissent from within

Jorhat may be just one of 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam, but Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi’s commanding victory there — in a contest where the BJP ran its most aggressive campaign and where Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma led from the front — will sting the state leadership the most.

More so since it has prompted rare dissent from within — soon after Gogoi’s victory, a BJP MLA said publicly that “arrogance” had cost his party the seat.

In a social media post Tuesday evening, BJP’s Khumtai MLA Mrinal Saika called Gogoi’s win “amazing” and “significant” and wrote: “The outcome proved that money, big publicity, overdoses of leaders and arrogant speeches does not always help to win elections.”

This invited Sarma’s ire, and he suggested that Saikia would soon leave the BJP for the Congress.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Saikia, a BJP veteran who has been part of the party for nearly three decades, said he has no plans to leave the party. He also elaborated on his comments from the previous day, saying a “personalised campaign” in Jorhat had hurt the BJP. “It was a fight between the CM and Gaurav Gogoi,” he said.

“It is not dissent; it is my opinion… Our party’s campaign in Jorhat was not good. I would call it over-campaigning and it resulted in a sympathy wave for Gogoi. If you abuse a person from day to night, it doesn’t work,” he said.

A day after his win, Gogoi told The Indian Express, “I feel as if the Chief Minister made it a prestige issue for him because in his campaign, he would never mention the name of the local candidate. In fact, in many of his big rallies, the candidate wasn’t even seen with him. The candidate would be in some remote corner addressing some remote rally and it was the Chief Minister who himself took