Highlights
- BJP's campaign focused on ending illegal immigration from Bangladesh
- Assam shared a 262-km-long border with Bangladesh
- "If they don't deliver, we will change them," say locals.
Satish Chandra Barman, a retired post master, wants early delivery on new Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal's promise. That his government will permanently seal the state's 262-km-long border with Bangladesh.
It's only been a few days since Mr Sonowal took oath at the head of the state's first BJP government, but Mr Barman, 77, a resident of the border village of Bishkhowa, says, "They must increase force and mobile boats. If they don't deliver, we will change them as well."
The BJP's election campaign in Assam focused on ending illegal immigration from Bangladesh through a porous border and demographic fault lines in border areas yielded good results for the party, which ended 15 years of Congress rule in the state.
In Dhubri, a border district of Assam, for instance, the BJP won two out of seven seats, significant in a Muslim-majority district dominated for years by the Congress or Badruddin Ajmal's AUDF.
While voters say they wanted change or "Poribortan" - Mr Sonowal's war cry in the election campaign - his party also used a subtle campaign around the religious census to argue its case on illegal immigration.
The census shows that the Muslim population rose by nearly six per cent between 2001 and 2011 in Dhubri. Assam, which had six Muslim-majority districts in 2001, had nine in 2011. The BJP argues that the numbers swelled because of infiltration from across the border and that plugging gaps in border fencing is the only solution.
On the ground, however, that plan looks difficult to implement. Along the 134-kilometre-long border between Agomoni and Mancachar is the Binachar border outpost, where about four and a half kilometres of fencing has been washed away by the mighty Brahmaputra.
Post floods, the river changes course every year, making it near impossible to erect a permanent boundary.
Talk of sealing the border has also left many confused, since the border fence is 100 metres inside the actual boundary or Zero Point and many people have farmland across the fence.
One such farmer, Nizamuddin Bepari, said, "People who have lands across the fence will face hardships if the border is permanently sealed."