Asom Jatiya Parishad (AJP) is not a political party in the traditional sense. It is a ring of ex-AASU leaders who failed to retain the political power they once touched with bare hands during their youth. In the autumn of their lives, they now realise that their so-called enemies still hold the power point—not through resistance, but by realigning themselves masterfully with the existing regime.

AJP is the byproduct of midlife political syndromes—an attempt to regain relevance not by mass support, but by symbolism. It has no public base, no significant supporters, no pressing issues, no broad appeal—not even worthy adversaries. In a desperate bid to stay afloat in the turbulent and sharp currents of Assam’s politics, AJP has chosen to wield Assamese subnationalism as a survival tool, not as a transformative vision.

It is not movement—it is memory management. The former student warriors of Assam are no longer standing with the people. Instead, they are standing beside their own faded reflections, echoing slogans that no longer resonate in the hearts of the new generation. Their strategy isn’t resistance, it’s visibility without relevance.

What makes the story more ironic is that their ideological rivals—be it BJP, HBS, or Sonowal himself—have long outgrown student-era politics and evolved into political machines powered by statecraft, money, and electoral calculation. AJP, by contrast, still operates like a union body in a post-union world. It performs rituals of nationalism without delivering results. It preserves vocabulary without shaping vision. It simply floats.

II. The Apprentice vs The Master: How AJP’s Lurin Challenged Sonowal and Stirred the Axis of Assam Politics

The 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Dibrugarh exposed AJP’s symbolic politics with raw irony. It was AASU vs AASU, past vs present, emotion vs empire.

Lurin Jyoti Gogoi (LJG), once the blue-eyed boy of Sarbananda Sonowal, was now fielded by AJP to contest directly against his personal mentor, a former CM and current Union Minister. This wasn’t just electoral strategy—it was a political psychodrama. A confrontation between yesterday’s student dreams and today’s statecraft.

Behind the scenes stood Jagadish Bhuyan, the true architect of AJP, who once served as an AGP minister during the Prafulla Mahanta regime. His choice of LJG was deliberate—designed to give AJP a facelift, a symbol, a story. But politics is cruel. LJG, despite his integrity and symbolism, could not shift the tides. Congress (I), in its own opportunism, quietly backed LJG—a tactical move to embarrass Sonowal more than empower Lurin.

Realising the symbolic stakes, the BJP dispatched none other than Union Home Minister Amit Shah to Dibrugarh—a rescue operation to secure Sonowal’s prestige, and by extension, the party’s Assamese stronghold. The message was loud: Dibrugarh was not up for grabs.

Though Sonowal emerged victorious, the battle left cracks in the once-unified AASU narrative. The apprentice had challenged the master—not with machinery, but with memory. AJP tried to script resistance in a contest already captured by state power. In the end, the drama was remembered more than the result. And LJG, even in defeat, cemented himself as the face of symbolic defiance in a landscape otherwise ruled by institutional dominance.

III. AJP: The Midlife Crisis of Assam Politics

If political parties are born out of mass movements, sustained by ideas, and sharpened by struggle, then Asom Jatiya Parishad (AJP) is none of the above. It is, at best, a closed-door reunion of ex-AASU leaders, haunted more by missed opportunities than guided by any political vision.

At its core, AJP is not a party—it is therapy. A political midlife crisis group of former student firebrands, who once touched power with bare hands in their twenties, only to watch it slip away. Now, in the autumn of their lives, they have gathered—not to fight the system, but to prove they still exist.

In their deep survivalist desperation, AJP leans on Assamese subnationalism like a tired swimmer holding on to a piece of driftwood—not to reach the shore, but just to remain afloat in Assam’s increasingly sharp and strategic political current.

The emotional currency of jati, mati, bheti still sells in political theatre—but only when backed by either mass anger or organisational might. AJP has neither.

They speak of Assamese pride, but the people see no movement, no mobilisation, no message. The younger generation has moved on—to digital activism, development politics, or identity assertion through electoral strength (like the emergence of regional parties in tribal belts). AJP remains stuck in pre-2001 rhetoric with 1980s body language.

The tragedy isn’t just that AJP failed—it’s that the very forces it once called “enemies”:

BJP, which absorbed AGP,

Himanta Biswa Sarma, who mastered subnationalism better than anyone,

Sarbananda Sonowal, who rose beyond AASU’s limited reach,

have all evolved, survived, and realigned with power, while AJP clings to nostalgia and grievances.

They are not a threat. They are not a movement. They are a reminder—of what could have been, had they evolved.

Today, AJP has no enemies, because it has no weight.

It has no critics, because it has no visibility.

It has no followers, because it speaks to a past the youth no longer remember.

Asom Jatiya Parishad exists—but it does not matter. It floats on borrowed symbolism, led by veterans who once tasted power, but now only reheat memories. Their appeals to jati-mati-bheti no longer stir the soul of a young, restless, underemployed Assam.

Their relevance is fading—not because of political oppression, but because of political inertia.

In the end, AJP is not a rising sun on Assam’s political horizon. It is a ghost of a revolution that never matured. A party built not to lead, but to remember what leadership once felt like.

And in the turbulent waves of 2026, even nostalgia might not be enough to keep them afloat.