The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will form the government in Assam after the 2026 Assembly elections, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said on Sunday.
Campaigning for Rishiraj Koundinya, the AAP candidate from the Sonitpur Lok Sabha constituency, Mr. Mann said the increasing support for his party in Assam had been similar to what it received in Punjab and Delhi earlier.
“Mark my words. The AAP will form the government in Assam in 2026,” he said, asserting the pro-capitalist and anti-farmer outlook would lead to the downfall of the BJP.
He said the condition of tea plantation workers in Assam would be improved and their daily wages hiked to ₹450 from the current ₹250 if the AAP came to power.
The Punjab Chief Minister also took a swipe at his Assam counterpart, Himanta Biswa Sarma, for neglecting the education sector.
“The government schools in Delhi and Punjab were in bad shape before the AAP formed governments. Now, people are taking their children out of expensive private schools and putting them back in the government schools because of the drastic changes under the AAP governments,” he said.
“But schools in Assam are in such a condition that 8,000 of them have been shut down. Your Chief Minister is not interested in improving the government schools because his wife owns a private school,” Mr. Mann said.
Mr. Kaundinya is one of two AAP candidates in the fray in Assam. The other candidate is Manoj Dhanowar from the Dibrugarh Lok Sabha seat.
The AAP defied the decision of the Congress-led opposition alliance to put up the two candidates. While Mr. Kaundinya is up against seven rivals, including the BJP’s Ranjit Dutta and Premlal Ganju of Congress, Mr. Dhanowar faces the BJP’s Sarbananda Sonowal and the Assam Jatiya Parishad’s Lurinjyoti Gogoi.
