By Ananya Sharma 
Guwahati, April 6: Three days before Assam votes, the campaign hit a level nobody really expected. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma stood up on Monday and said something flat out: the documents Congress leaders used to attack him and his family at press conferences were fed to them by a Pakistani social media group. And then he said this “Congress is finished in Assam.”
That is a big statement three days before polling day. But in a campaign that has been this personal, this loud, and this messy, maybe nothing should surprise us anymore.
The Attack That Set Everything Off
To understand Monday, you have to go back to Sunday April 5.
That morning, Pawan Khera, one of Congress’s most aggressive spokespeople, walked into a press conference at the party’s headquarters in New Delhi and dropped what he called a bombshell. He claimed that Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, the Chief Minister’s wife, holds passports from not one, not two, but three foreign countries Egypt, the UAE, and Antigua and Barbuda. He put documents up on screen. He said Indian law does not allow dual citizenship, let alone triple. And he asked: how is this even possible?
He also twisted the knife a little. Himanta, he pointed out, has built his entire political career on what many describe as anti-Muslim positioning. And yet here was his wife, allegedly holding passports from two Muslim-majority countries. Khera did not let that irony go unnoticed.
But it did not stop at passports. Khera alleged that Riniki Bhuyan Sarma owns two properties in Dubai that were never mentioned in the Chief Minister’s election affidavit a mandatory legal document every candidate must file before contesting. He also pointed to a company called Asset Collective LLC, registered in Wyoming, USA, with Sarma and his son listed as partners, reportedly sitting on a budget equivalent to around Rs 52,000 crore in Indian currency, supposedly meant for hotel investments.
He demanded the Election Commission step in and investigate. He demanded Sarma’s candidature be disqualified.
Meanwhile, in Guwahati, Gaurav Gogoi Congress’s Assam chief and a sitting Lok Sabha MP was doing his own press conference, calling the Chief Minister “an embarrassment for Assam and India” and demanding a full probe.
It was a coordinated two-city attack, timed for maximum damage with just four days left to vote.
Sarma Calls It All Fake
Sarma did not take long.
By Sunday evening, he was on X calling every single allegation “malicious, fabricated, and politically motivated.” He listed out what he said were embarrassing errors in the documents Khera had shown wrong surname spelling, a UAE ID with inconsistencies, mismatched expiry dates on the Antigua passport, spelling mistakes in the Egyptian document including the word “Egyptiann” with two n’s, and a property title deed whose QR code led nowhere.
His wife Riniki Bhuyan Sarma was equally direct. She posted on social media that not only were the documents fake, but poorly faked. “Aapki sirf tapasya mein hi nahi, AI generation aur photoshopping mein bhi kami reh gayi,” she wrote roughly translating to: you failed not just at politics, but even at making fake documents convincingly.
Both Sarma and his wife announced they would file criminal and civil defamation cases against Khera within 48 hours.
Then Came the Pakistan Claim
On Monday morning, Sarma held his own press conference. And that is when the campaign took its most dramatic turn yet.
He told reporters that during the BJP’s own research into Sunday’s press conferences, they discovered something: the material used by Pawan Khera in Delhi and Gaurav Gogoi in Guwahati was sourced from a Pakistani social media group. He said Pakistani TV channels had done at least 11 talk shows about the Assam election in the past 10 days alone something he said had simply never happened before. And in every single one of those shows, the conclusion was the same: Congress should win.
He said law enforcement agencies would be looking into this.
“Congress is finished in Assam,” he said.
That is the kind of line that travels fast. It was designed to.
What Congress Said Next
Congress was not going to absorb this quietly.
Gogoi and Khera held yet another press conference, this time specifically to hit back at Sarma’s defamation threat. Gogoi pointed out that Sarma has a long habit of filing defamation cases the moment anyone raises corruption allegations against him. He called it a pattern of avoidance, not accountability.
They challenged Sarma to go to court immediately rather than 48 hours later. They said they would show up “with sacks full of documents.” They also demanded Sarma submit a sworn affidavit to the Election Commission specifically addressing the Dubai properties, the Wyoming company, and the alleged undisclosed assets. According to them, these missing details are enough grounds to disqualify his candidature.
Khera also confirmed that Congress was not done there was more material coming.
This Is What the Campaign Has Come Down To
There is a bigger picture here worth stepping back to see.
This entire exchange the passport claims, the Pakistan allegation, the defamation threats, the counter press conferences has consumed the final week of campaigning in Assam. Real issues that matter to real people have been shoved to the back.
Rahul Gandhi was in Assam on Sunday, addressing a rally in Biswanath. He called Sarma the “most corrupt Chief Minister in the country.” He promised that if Congress wins, legal action will follow. He also promised tea garden workers a daily wage of Rs 450 and Scheduled Tribe status for six communities. Earlier in the week, he had addressed a rally in Karbi Anglong promising implementation of Article 244(A), which would give indigenous communities genuine local self-governance powers.
These are things that matter to a large chunk of Assam’s voters tea garden communities, indigenous groups, people worried about land and livelihoods.
But they have been getting drowned out by passport documents, Pakistan allegations, and defamation suits.
Sarma, for his part, has leaned into the national security framing all campaign. Earlier, he had called Gogoi “an agent of Pakistan.” A court even passed an interim order at the time telling Gogoi and two other Congress leaders not to make defamatory statements against Sarma. Now with the Pakistani social media group allegation, Sarma is using the same playbook again just louder, and closer to polling day.
What Is Actually at Stake on April 9
Assam votes in a single phase on April 9 across all 126 constituencies. Results will be declared on May 4.
The last time Assam voted, in 2021, the BJP-led alliance came back with 75 seats. Sarma subsequently became Chief Minister. This time, BJP is defending that majority while Congress is fighting to show it is still a serious force in the Northeast.
Sarma himself is contesting from Jalukbari in Kamrup district a seat he has held since 2001, for over 25 years. His main challenger there is Bidisha Neog, a 34-year-old Congress candidate making her first real electoral push. The constituency has over 2.1 lakh voters after delimitation.
The Election Commission has imposed a silence period from 5 PM on April 7, which means public campaigning effectively ends in less than 48 hours. Whatever damage has been done, or not done, is done.
Who Believes What, and Why It Matters
Here is where it gets genuinely complicated.
Sarma’s Pakistan allegation is either a serious national security claim or an election-eve smokescreen, depending on where you stand. If true, it is a matter that goes well beyond Assam’s assembly elections. Foreign interference in Indian state polls would demand urgent attention from central intelligence and law enforcement. If it cannot be proven, it is a highly irresponsible thing to throw into a campaign three days before voting.
Similarly, Congress’s passport and asset allegations are either backed by authentic documents and deserve investigation, or they are a last-ditch fabrication designed to rattle an incumbent who has run rings around the opposition for five years. Sarma has pointed to specific technical errors in the documents. Congress says those errors were planted by BJP’s IT cell to muddy the waters.
Both sides are asking voters to trust them completely and distrust the other completely. That is a hard ask in a democracy.
What is certain is this: the Election Commission should be looking seriously at both sets of allegations. Defamation cases will play out in court over months or years. But the voters of Assam have exactly three days to decide what they believe and what they are willing to act on.
On April 9, Assam will speak. And it will not be quiet about it.
Stay ahead with Hindustan Herald — bringing you trusted news, sharp analysis, and stories that matter across Politics, Business, Technology, Sports, Entertainment, Lifestyle, and more.
Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, YouTube, and join our Telegram community @hindustanherald for real-time updates.
Covers Indian politics, governance, and policy developments with over a decade of experience in political reporting.
- Ananya Sharma
- Ananya Sharma
- Ananya Sharma
- Ananya Sharma
Prakash Nair