The by-election result for the Nagaon Lok Sabha seat, declared on Friday, has reshaped Assam’s overall political scenario. The Nagaon seat fell vacant in May this year when the then MP, Pradyut Bordoloi, resigned from the Congress party to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and was elected to the Assam Legislative Assembly. There are several critical points that have emerged in the aftermath of the Nagaon Lok Sabha constituency by-election. The BJP candidate has achieved a resounding victory in the by-election. While altogether 14,54,380 voters out of a total of 19.05 lakh had exercised their franchise, Devasish Sharma, the BJP candidate, alone polled 7,11,349 votes, which is exactly 49.12 per cent of the total votes cast. In comparison, Maulana Badruddin Ajmal, the AIUDF supremo, polled 5,72,125 votes (39.34%) and came a distant second. The Congress candidate, namely Sibamoni Bora, got only 1,29,492 votes, which is just 8.9 per cent of the total votes cast. Important to note, there were twelve more candidates in the fray, of which one belonged to a leftist party called SUCI, one belonged to a faction of the Revolutionary Communist Party of India (RCPI), and one to a little-known entity called The National Road Map Party of India, apart from nine independent candidates. These twelve candidates together polled a total of 29,171 votes, which comes to a little over two per cent. In addition, 9,244 voters had pressed the NOTA button, which comes to about 0.64 per cent. As has been reported, of the 19.05 lakh total voters in the Nagaon Lok Sabha constituency, a little over 12 lakh are said to be Muslims, which works out to about 61 per cent of the total. Traditionally, Muslim voters have shown little support for the BJP, a political party affiliated with the Sangh Parivar. In the last two Assam Assembly elections (2021 and 2026), there has been no Muslim MLA from the BJP. Given this background, and considering that Nagaon is a Muslim-majority Lok Sabha constituency where non-Muslims make up only about 39 per cent of the total voters, it is highly significant that the BJP candidate has won by a large margin. The next point to note is the performance of the Congress party. It was this Nagaon constituency that was once upon a time represented by Dev Kanta Barooah, who had risen to become one of the most powerful presidents of the Indian National Congress. Looking at the history of the Nagaon constituency, one would observe that while the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) had won it thrice in a row – 1985, 1991 and 1996 – each time, Muhiram Saikia (also MoS Education at the Centre) was the elected candidate. Saikia had also once become a MoS for Education at the Centre. In 1998, the Congress won it after a long gap, its candidate being Nripen Goswami. The BJP had in the past won it four times in a row – 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014 – its candidate being Rajen Saikia, a former state BJP president who had also served as a Union Minister of State for Railways. Despite Gohain winning the seat four times in a row, the Congress had snatched it away from him in 2019, its candidate being Pradyut Bordoloi, who retained it in 2024. But the seat fell vacant when Bordoloi quit the Congress after falling out with APCC president Gaurav Gogoi and senior leader Rakibul Hussain. As analysts have pointed, while Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma drew up a wonderful strategy to clinch the seat from the Congress, the development work of the BJP-led government also motivated the Muslim voters to support it on the voting day. The choice of the candidate is also very significant: Devasish Sharma was the District Commissioner of Nagaon until a few days before the submission of the nomination papers. Sharma, however, has been a darling of the residents of Morigaon and Nagaon districts by dint of his proactive and pro-people style of administration, because of which he was chosen despite the BJP having a long list of veterans craving for the party ticket. Devasish Sharma’s approach as District Commissioner, first in Morigaon and then in Nagaon, merits examination for prioritising the needs of the most disadvantaged individuals in service delivery. Very few people know that Devasish Sharma had also played a fascinating role in establishing important contacts with the ULFA way back when Lt Gen (Retd) SK Sinha was Governor of Assam. The former governor’s second volume of autobiography has details about it. It is well known that he took special care of cancer patients from Assam while in Mumbai.