The Bharatiya Janata Party won a second term governing Assam, matching its own previous seat count exactly.

It took 60 of the 126 seats on offer, still short of a majority on its own.

It governed again with the backing of allied parties, which together held 59.5% of the seats.

Its closest rival, the Indian National Congress, trailed with 29 seats on 29.7% of the vote.

The BJP itself polled 33.2% of the vote, enough to lead the state but not to govern without allies.

Akhil Gogoi, an anti-Citizenship Amendment Act activist held under the UAPA since his December 2019 arrest, launched his own party, Raijor Dal, from prison on 2 October 2020, ahead of the election.¹

The Election Commission announced a three-phase schedule for the state on 26 February 2021, with Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora confirming voting on 27 March, 1 April and 6 April, and counting on 2 May.²

Rahul Gandhi released the Congress manifesto for Assam on 20 March, promising Rs 2,000 a month for every housewife, 200 units of free electricity and the repeal of the Citizenship Amendment Act.³

BJP president JP Nadda followed three days later, on 23 March, with the party's own manifesto, promising a corrected National Register of Citizens and Rs 3,000 a month to 30 lakh families under the Orunodoi scheme.⁴

Gogoi himself stood for Raijor Dal in Sibsagar while still in judicial custody, running no campaign of his own.⁵

BJP's own seat count barely moved, even as a new party broke through and one of its allies saw its support collapse.

It won 60 seats again, matching its 60 from the previous election.

The new arrival was UPPL, entering the assembly for the first time.

The single biggest shift ran from BJP to INC, covering 9 of the 43 seats that changed hands.

Turnout, the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot, fell -2.6 pp from the previous election.

The closest race was in Nazira, Assam, decided by a margin — how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second — of 683 votes.

Jania, Assam had the widest margin of the election, 78.4% of the vote separating the top two finishers.

Jaleswar, Assam recorded the highest turnout of any seat, 93.4%.

Algapur, Assam drew the most candidates anywhere, 19 names on the ballot.

Dispur, Assam was the state's largest constituency by registered voters, with 4,12,160 on its rolls.

NOTA — None of the Above, a ballot option letting voters formally reject every candidate on offer — drew 2,19,578 votes statewide, 1.1% of the total.

The North-Eastern Areas Reorganisation Act, effective 21 January 1972, created the states of Manipur, Tripura and Meghalaya out of the former state of Assam, reducing it to its present boundaries.⁶

The Assam Accord, signed on 15 August 1985, ended a six-year agitation over immigration and set 1 January 1966 as the cutoff date for detecting foreign nationals. Movement leaders then founded the Asom Gana Parishad, which won that December's assembly election, with its president Prafulla Kumar Mahanta becoming Chief Minister.⁷