3. Himanta Ideologically More in Line With BJP’s Priorities
Neither Sonowal nor Himanta come from a BJP or RSS background. Sonowal was president of the All Assam Students’ Union and then joined the Ason Gana Parishad. His legal battle that led to scrapping of the IMDT Act gave him the title of Jatiya Nayak “Hero of the Assamese People”.
He joined the BJP in 2011.
Sonowal’s popularity among Assamese nationalists helped give BJP’s acceptability in this section and enabled it to present itself as a party representing indigenous Assamese, contrary to its earlier reputation of being a party dominated by Bengalis, Marwaris and Hindi-speaking migrants.
Himanta is also from an AASU background, but he fell out with the organisation and became close to its main antagonist, former Congress CM Hiteshwar Saikia. He grew rapidly within the ranks in the Congress and became Tarun Gogoi’s de-factor number two in his…