'Democracy On Sale': BJP Slams Congress' Rs 50,000 Ticket Fee For Assam Polls

A major political controversy erupted in Assam on Thursday over the Congress party's decision to require ticket aspirants for this year's Assam polls to pay Rs 50,000 while giving their party ticket application forms to be considered for candidature in the run-up to the 2026 Assembly elections.

As per a copy of the Congress ticket aspirant application form obtained by NDTV, the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) has invited applications from party members seeking the party ticket. However, it has made the submission of Rs 50,000 mandatory at the application stage itself, effectively turning entry into the ticket race into a pay-first process.

Additionally, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) also appointed Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to oversee the ticket screening process.

The BJP has strongly criticised this move, labelling it as "democracy on sale."

"Ticket aspirants are being asked to deposit Rs 50,000 merely to be considered for a Congress ticket. This is democracy on sale. It strikes at the very core of public service and exposes what the Congress truly stands for -- power and privilege, not people or principles," BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya wrote in a post on X. 

Cash for Congress ticket in Assam.

After Smt. Navjot Singh Sidhu openly declared that prospective Chief Minister candidates in the Congress must put ₹500 crore on the table, the Assam Congress has now institutionalised this culture of pay-to-play politics.

Ticket aspirants are… pic.twitter.com/ti6AnsyXZU

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) January 8, 2026

He accused Rahul Gandhi and Assam Congress president Gaurav Gogoi, who gave the instructions to issue the directive, of "demeaning the people of Assam by endorsing this shameless monetisation of politics."

Issuing a clarification on the matter, the Congress said that even Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had to submit an application fee when he was in the party. 

"Why is the BJP speaking on this? It's an internal matter of the Congress party, and this has been a long tradition to take an application fee from ticket aspirants, it's nothing new," former president of Assam Congress Ripun Bora told NDTV.  

"And how can it be 'democracy on sale'? Even the present Assam Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, had to give an application fee when he was in Congress. Even in the last election, about 1600 people had applied, so did they not believe in democracy? Even this time, hundreds of applications will come by January 20, it's completely an internal party matter," he added. 

In the 2021 elections, around 1600 people had applied for party tickets. Going by that projection, if a similar number of ticket aspirants apply for party tickets this time, the party would be collecting about Rs 8 crores as application fees.