Bhupen Borah, the former president of Assam Pradesh Congress Committee, will also be joining Bharatiya Janata Party on the 22 nd February 2026. The move was confirmed by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma after he met Borah and decided to make the move on the grounds that it was a home coming of an ardent Assamese leader.

Resignation Backdrop

It was due to sidelining and inability to make decisions that Borah retired to congress on February 16. He was also nominated to become the chief of the state in 2021 but lost the next year to Gaurav Gogoi with in his portfolio significant responsibilities such as the coalition committee. An individual schism was also revealed when the heads of the parties rejected his contribution in the participants of the Majuli yatra.

Rahul Gandhi and Gogoi pressurized him to take back the resignation letter he had written to Mallikarjun Kharge. The in-charge of the AICC, Jitendra Singh, indicated that it was cancelled but Borah had to resist the visit by Sarma to his home in Guwahati. Sarma criticizes that the thirty-two years of service served by Borah was worthy of being enhanced keeping in view the feudalism element of Congress.

These are the Proclamation at Sarma.

Sarma also stated that it will hold a joint press conference with the state president of BJP Dilip Saikia who will make a final plan of joining logistics in Guwahati and North Lakhimpur. It was passed by the national president Nitin Nabin and assured him the platform and respect of Borah because he had never held a high office as had his father most of the BJP workers.

By emphasizing on Borah, the final great Hindu Assamese Congress leader, Sarma had left it watered down its mainstream of acceptability. He assured him of a safe seat in the next assembly elections and BJP was wishing to fight back against a tide of opposition. The family of Borah accepted Sarma with traditional aarti which implied that it was warm.

Congress Fallout

This is a blow to the Congress on the run up of elections in Assam in the year 2026. Borah is a grass worker who mobilises Hindu voters and without him, the party is still weak in its effort to recover following the drubbing in 2021. In 2015, Sarma, at the effect of the culture of poll-avoidance in Congress, equated it to his own.

Gogoi referred to Borah organization as property, and it did not work. Analysts consider it to be the BJP story of a shrink of the native Assamese Congress.

​Poll Implications

The Assam election has been a tussle between BJP development agenda and coalition of congress. Borah defection would be playing into the hands of the Assam seats which was upper like Jorhat where he was a stronghold. It raises to the limelight the policy of disillusioned high command leaders being poached by BJP.

In a light which BJP was becoming the sons of soil, Sarma reacted to the minority votebank allegations. The new beginning he gives to himself, Borah, is to propel forward Assamese pride and Assamese development and anti-corruption- the government by Sarma replicated.

Broader Northeast Politics

This is following BJP growth in Northeast which is a composite of former Congress opponents together with Hindutva voter block. It is a brain drain to the congress that is crippling its 126 target congress. It is by the means of this strategy that Borah can implement a series of other exits and this will lead to a leaning scale during the third term of BJP with Sarma.

By the next February 22, Guwahati is currently in the spotlight and the official induction in addition to the possible buzz of the cabinet. Assam politics is hot and it will be hot with fierce battles in 2026.