Sarbananda Sonowal: Jatiya Nayak, Demagogue, and a Turncoat Rival

Sarbananda Sonowal, the soft-spoken, mild-mannered, and seemingly non-controversial student leader, once led one of the strongest student organizations embodying Assamese subnationalism. A figure of vaktibad and a true Jatiya Nayak, he fought fiercely against the IMDT Act from the platform of AASU, cementing his place in Assamese political consciousness.

From AASU he transitioned to the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) — a party painted in Assamese colour, emotion, and sentiment. But it was the RSS that picked him up, drawn to his carefully-crafted clean image, his tribal identity (which had remained subdued during his AASU days), and his broad grassroots support.

From an AGP MLA and MP, by 2014 he reinvented himself as a BJP MP from Lakhimpur and entered the Delhi Durbar as a portfolio holder in Narendra Modi’s NDA government. With a new base, new partners, and a new identity, he was elevated as the first BJP Chief Minister of Assam in 2016.

Yet the voyage was far from smooth. Though he carried the aura of a Jatiya Nayak, his clean image and AASU roots seemed too fragile to secure electoral victory outright. Finally, Majuli was chosen as his seat — and his connection to vaktibad paid dividends. Majuli could rightfully claim to have elected Assam’s first BJP Chief Minister.

The rest followed like ritual: Barak, Brahmaputra, Pahar, vaiyam, and soft words pleasing to the ear. But beneath the surface, his administration faltered — big announcements, impractical plans and policies, and a bureaucracy he never quite controlled. His much-publicized inquiry into the APSC scam under Congress fell flat and has now embarrassed the present Himanta Biswa Sarma government. Arresting a few corrupt officials and conducting some high-profile evictions became symbols of his failure rather than achievement.

The nadir came during the anti-CAB/CAA protests, when five Assamese boys lost their lives on the streets. Guwahati became the epicenter of a rebellion so intense that India had to cancel a scheduled Prime Minister-level summit with Japan. Insiders still recall Sonowal’s nervousness and helplessness — a near-collapse of his government, with even 40 MLAs privately asking whether they should resign. Mutual support from party colleagues saved him then.

Observers also note another, less-discussed failure — his cancellation of Justice K.N. Saikia’s commission on secret killings during the AGP regime under Prafulla Mahanta (1996–2001). As a Jatiya Nayak, he could have taken the matter to higher courts, just as he had fought the IMDT Act — but he chose silence.

As is often the case, when a leader rises, so do his kitchen cabinet and sycophants. Old AASU comrades became bureaucrats without portfolios, others became gatekeepers — and Sonowal appeared increasingly as a weak CM.

Today, he survives politically because of his loyalty to the Modi–Shah duo, and because he poses no internal threat. He remains politically neutral yet, in the context of Assam’s boiling politics, still a significant power factor when it comes to the ULFA(I) threat.

Sonowal represents the Assamese mainstream, armed with the Indian Constitution — his generation adopting mild protests and dialogue as their tag line. Geography, too, plays its part in this rivalry: both Sonowal and Paresh Baruah hail from the same locality — Jerai and Bindhakota — and once walked together for Assamese nationalism and identity. That concord eventually split silently.

Delhi’s choice of Sonowal seems to have been deliberate — he now stands as the perfect turncoat rival to Paresh Baruah’s armed campaign for a sovereign Assam. The importance of Sonowal today transcends his role as a BJP leader; he is the Constitution’s answer to insurgency.

This shadow game — between the constitutionalist Jatiya Nayak and the underground insurgent — quietly occupies the center stage of Assam’s politics.