Congress Wins Only 21 Seats in Assam and Bengal, 20 Are Muslim Candidates

The 2026 Assembly election results from Assam and West Bengal have raised a question that the Congress party cannot easily brush aside, who is actually voting for it?

The Congress contested over 390 seats across these two states and came out with just 21 wins. That in itself is a poor return. But the bigger story is in the details: 20 of those 21 winning candidates are Muslims.

This is not a one-off result. It fits a pattern that has been building for years, and one that senior leaders inside the Congress had warned about as far back as 2014.

The Numbers State by State

In Assam, the Congress contested 99 of the 126 assembly seats. It won 19. Out of those 19 winners, 18 are Muslim candidates.

In West Bengal, it put up candidates in 292 seats and managed to win only two. Both its winning MLAs are Muslims.

Compare this to Kerala, where the Congress-led United Democratic Front won 102 of 140 seats. There, the party fielded and won candidates from various communities. Eight of its 63 MLAs are Muslims, and the IUML, a Muslim party and a key ally, contributed 22 more.

The contrast is clear. In Kerala, Congress has a broad coalition base. In Assam and Bengal, it is almost entirely dependent on Muslim voters to win anything at all.

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Why This Matters for Congress

The Congress has long positioned itself as a secular party that represents all communities. But when almost every seat it wins in two major states comes from Muslim-dominated constituencies, that positioning starts to look uneven, and its political opponents are quick to point it out.

The BJP has been calling Congress a "minority-appeasing party" for over a decade now. What has changed in 2026 is that this accusation is now also coming from within Congress's own former allies.

Why Badruddin Ajmal Called Congress the "Muslim League"

Badruddin Ajmal, president of the AIUDF and a Muslim political leader himself, reacted sharply to the Assam results. "Congress has become the Muslim League," he said. He also added that the party "dug a well for the AIUDF but fell into it" and is "finished in Assam."

This comment carries weight because of the history between the two parties.

In 2021, the Congress had allied with the AIUDF, the BPF, and Left parties to form the "Mahajot" coalition in Assam. The idea was to consolidate anti-CAA votes and minority support against the BJP. The alliance won 50 of 126 seats, but it was not enough for a majority. Congress got 29 seats then, with 16 going to Muslim candidates.

After that poll, Congress distanced itself from the AIUDF. In 2022, the party's working president in Assam, Jakir Hussain Sikdar, made it official: "We will not enter into an alliance with the AIUDF for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections or any upcoming polls." The stated reason was that the alliance had not delivered the expected results.

But now, without the AIUDF, Congress still won almost all its Assam seats through Muslim candidates. The separation from Ajmal did not change the underlying voter arithmetic.

The 2014 Warning Congress Did Not Act On

This is not new information for the party. In 2014, after the Congress's crushing defeat to the BJP in the general elections, a committee led by senior leader AK Antony submitted an internal report. The report flagged that the party was being perceived as focused on minority appeasement, and that this perception was driving Hindu voters toward the BJP.

That warning was largely ignored. More than a decade later, the results in Assam and West Bengal suggest the problem has only deepened.

What the Candidate Data Shows

In West Bengal alone, the Congress fielded 63 Muslim candidates, more than the TMC, which gave tickets to 47 Muslims. The party's Muslim candidates in both Assam and Kerala had a strike rate of over 80%, meaning around eight out of every ten Muslim candidates fielded by the Congress and its partners ended up winning.

There is no problem with fielding candidates from minority communities; that is a normal part of democratic politics. The concern is different: in Assam and West Bengal, Congress is now winning almost nowhere except in Muslim-majority areas. That is a structural problem for a party that wants to present itself as a national alternative.