March 2026
With one week to go until the elections in Assam, scheduled on 9 April, Diaspora in Action for Human Rights and Democracy (DAHRD) is releasing a preliminary monitoring report entitled “Assam Assembly Elections: Political Communication, Digital Propaganda and AI-Weaponised Disinformation” that documents the normalisation of AI-generated propaganda in electoral campaigns and the role of social platforms in amplifying such content. Our findings are based on a systematic open-source monitoring of 57 social media accounts across X (Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook from November 2025 to March 25, 2026 – covering the full pre-election period.
🔍Our monitoring reveals three threats to democratic integrity:
- a systematic disinformation campaign targeting Bengali-speaking Muslim communities — 158 confirmed AI-generated posts (1.38 million views) produced and distributed through official BJP channels, including a Cabinet Minister’s verified account;
- a coordinated AI deepfake campaign targeting principal opposition candidate Gaurav Gogoi — 31 confirmed AI attack videos fabricating his identity as a Pakistani agent, distributed through official party accounts, constituting documented AI-enabled electoral manipulation;
- CM Himanta Biswa Sarma’s escalating rhetoric against Muslim communities across 18 verified statements — including a direct on-record admission that vocabulary was deliberately shifted from ‘Miya’ to ‘Bangladeshi’ to evade legal liability. These findings are supported by 8,635 deduplicated posts across 57 monitored accounts.
According to our findings, the use of AI in the BJP’s Assam campaign represents the creation of an altered reality – moving beyond conventional disinformation tactics, AI-based campaigns are creating vivid imagery of a manufactured reality that seeks to demonize and distort the socio-political and historical life of people in Assam.
For media enquiries, please contact: press@dahrd.org.