Assam CM Himanta Biswa, BJP national president Nitin Nabin, state party president Dilip Saikia and others during a public meeting in Dibrugarh, Wednesday, February 18, 2026. | Photo credit: PTI
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) National President Nitin Nabin on Wednesday (February 18, 2026) urged party workers to ensure at least 50% votes cast in each polling station in the upcoming 126-member Assam Assembly elections.
He was specific about the eastern part of the state, which was dominated by tribal and “tea tribe” communities, which gave the BJP a majority of assembly seats in 2016 and 2021.
The party is expected to face a challenge from the Gogois trio – Assam Congress president Gaurav Gogoi and his counterparts Akhil Gogoi of the Raijor Dal and Lurinjyoti Gogoi of the Assam Jatiya Parishad – in eastern Assam. Their parties are allies.
Addressing BJP workers at the Panna Pramukh Sammelan in eastern Assam’s Dibrugarh, Mr. Nabin sought to mobilize party members and booth-level workers to ensure that NDA candidates get 50% of the votes cast in each polling station. He praised them for helping the BJP get more than 45% votes in the last two elections.
Panna Pramukh is a BJP worker assigned to maintain regular contact with the 30 voters listed on the polling station-based voter list page.
Mr. Nabin said the Congress was not fit to rule Assam. “Congress has used Assam for vote bank politics. BJP is working with people and has the policy, intention and ability to rule for another term,” he said.
He thanked Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for protecting the interests of the indigenous people of Assam and defended the state government’s action against “Bangladeshi infiltrators” and efforts to evict encroachers of government lands. “The impact of the crackdown on illegal immigrants is being felt in Kerala and West Bengal,” he added.
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Earlier, Mr Sarma said he was confident the BJP would improve on 2021, when it had 60 seats. Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, who represents the Dibrugarh Lok Sabha constituency, criticized the Congress for leaving Assamese with allegedly “anti-citizen” laws such as the Illegal Migrants (Tribunal Determination) Act, which was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2005.
Published – 18 Feb 2026 10:00 PM IST