When it rained last month, says Hasida Begum (22), the water rose to the calves in the makeshift structure made of tin and tarpaulin she has been living in with her family since their house was razed 10 months ago.Hers is one of over 600 families whose homes were demolished during a large-scale eviction drive last June in the Hasila Beel wetland area of Assam’s Goalpara district. This eviction exercise was one of the first of several mass-scale eviction drives that the BJP-led Assam government has carried out since then, mostly affecting Bengali-origin Muslims. Since then, these people have been living in camps near their homes and have seen evictions such as theirs become the centre-piece of the BJP’s campaign for the April 9 Assembly polls.In the run-up to elections, BJP leaders, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, have repeatedly referred to those evicted as “infiltrators” and the number — over 1.5 lakh bighas of forest, grazing, revenue and other forest land cleared of “encroachers” — as a key achievement of the Himanta Biswa Sarma government. Now, one of the core promises of the BJP’s manifesto is the continuation of such evictions, with the Chief Minister declaring that his government would “free every inch of land from Bangladeshi illegal immigrants”. Sarma has also repeatedly declared that if the BJP is voted back to power, it will “break the backbone of Miyas (a pejorative term used to refer to Bengali-origin Muslims)”.Also Read | Assam Assembly polls: BJP banks on sitting MLAs as fresh faces dominate battlegroundIn the camp, the residents pay Rs 300 per month to rent out their hovels, and the living conditions are sparse. There are two toilets and one serviceable tube-well, and no electricity for the roughly 330 families residing in the camp. While they are very much at the centre of election rhetoric, residents say they have found little political support, even from the Opposition.They come under the Goalpara East constituency, where Congress MLA Abul Kalam Rasheed Alam is seeking re-election. He is up against the Asom Gana Parishad’s (AGP) Abdur Rahim Zibran; Goalpara West sitting MLA Abdur Rashid Mandal, who has got the ticket from Congress ally Raijor Dal and turned this into a “friendly contest”; and the AIUDF’s Hafiz Bashir Ahmed.“In the days of the eviction, when there was a lot of media here, some politicians visited. Later, Akhil Gogoi (Raijor Dal chief) visited us once. But beyond that, we’ve been ignored. Even for the elections, no one has assurances for us, no one has come to see us. On the other hand, the BJP is using us to win the election,” says Naushad Ali (53), a daily wage labourer.Electoral roll scareSeveral camp residents received a scare during the Special Revision exercise when they received notices based on complaints against their inclusion in the voter list. The complainants claimed that since these voters had “permanently shifted”, they should be excluded. Later, the CM said he encourages BJP workers to file such complaints to ‘trouble Miyas’ and keep them under pressure. Following hearings, all the voters in the camp remained on the rolls.Story continues below this adDespite the feeling of isolation, Joynal Abedin (49), who also received such a notice, says he, along with most residents, will repose their faith in the Congress in the election. “Never mind who the candidate might be, we need poriborton (change) and to change the CM. It’s a question of our children and grandchildren,” he says.The concern surrounding evictions and the election considerations tied to it spreads far beyond the sites of these exercises.At the river’s mercyFor instance, for Mehr Malik, a resident of Barpeta district, the fear of losing his home to an eviction is very real. He is a farmer from the shifting sands by the river Brahmaputra, part of a long belt of chars and chaporis — river islands and sandbars — that are constantly changing shape because of the shifting course of the river. The land on Tarabari char, where he had miyadi patta land was eaten away by the river, prompting him to move away. He, like hundreds of others, is now living along the embankment along the river, on what they know is government land. This means the possibility of an eviction is very real.Malik says he and his companions have decided they must vote for the best possible chance of a change in government. “For our safety, what we really want is a new government and, in our calculation, the best choice for that is the Congress,” he says.Story continues below this adHowever, others are wary about the cautious approach that the Congress, as a party trying to rebuild itself in Upper Assam, has taken over the past five years in the face of statements and government policies against Bengali-origin Muslims.Hasin Miya, 46, a char farmer from the Chenga constituency, says he now believes that the choice of party is immaterial and it is in the best interest of voters like him to look at the capacity of individual MLAs to do local work.“Instead of speaking for us, if someone speaks in support of us, the Congress removes them, such as Sherman Ali Ahmed and Rejaul Karim Sarkar. Then what’s the difference? We might as well have an MLA who will at least work on local issues like roads,” he says, referring to the incumbent Baghbar MLA (and now TMC Mandia candidate) whom the Congress kept suspended for several years before he left the party, and former All Assam Minority Students Union leader Rejaul Karim Sarkar (now the AIUDF candidate from Srijangram), who resigned from the Congress three days after joining it.Also Read | Central agencies tighten noose on key TMC candidates ahead of Assembly polls: Who are they?AIUDF’s trump cardAmid this alienation that many Bengali-origin Muslims speak about, the Badruddin Ajmal-led AIUDF — which people appear ready to write off as Muslim voters consolidated behind the Congress in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections — has shaken things up by bringing in AIMIM chief Asadudin Owaisi to campaign for it.Story continues below this adThe Hyderabad MP has placed the BJP’s aggressive stance against “miyas” at the front and centre of his pitch. Leading the crowd in a chant of “Miya zindabad” and declaring “Jab tak miya hai, duniya zinda rahegi (till miyas there, the world will live on)” said at one public meeting, “One of the reasons I have come is that in the last few years I have been seeing that and feeling what is happening, and tears also come out of my eyes, when I see, read and hear about the oppression of the Miya people of Assam.”As Owaisi campaigns in Mandia, Barpeta, on Friday, local resident Sahidul Choudhury, who works at a local office there, says the AIMIM leader’s pitch may find resonance among some, but he worries about further polarisation.“The AIUDF is also clearly trying to sway the emotions of the people, which might work for some people. But there are also lots of people who are wary about this kind of outreach, that it might lead to more negativity towards us and make us more vulnerable to attack from the government,” he says.In 2021, when the Congress and the AIUDF were in alliance, all 30 of the Muslim MLAs elected — from a total of 126 — were from these two parties. In the wake of the 2023 delimitation exercise, various parties and observers estimate that the number of constituencies where minority voters play a decisive role has reduced from around 35 to about 23.