Assam BJP reach out to leaders threatening to contest as Independents

Guwahati: Several sitting MLAs and aspirants, who have been deprived of BJP tickets for the April 9 Assam Assembly polls, have threatened to contest as Independents, with Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and state party chief Dilip Saikia reaching out to them to calm their ire, sources said.

The recent induction of Congress leaders Pradyut Bordoloi and Bhupen Borah into the BJP and their subsequent nomination as party candidates for Dispur and Bihpuria assembly constituencies, respectively, has raised the hackles of many ticket aspirants in the party.

The most vocal protest has been in Dispur constituency, where senior party leader Jayanta Das was a highly probable candidate before Bordoloi jumped into the scene.

Das openly revolted against Sarma, accusing him of making the party a “Congress BJP” by bringing in his close associates from the grand old party and ignoring the old timers.

He quit the party and is likely to contest from the same constituency as an Independent, claiming that his supporters have collected the nomination papers.

The party also denied a ticket to sitting MLA and veteran politician Atul Bora, who has represented the BJP in the constituency twice since 2016 and served two terms as an AGP leader since 1985.

Bora had also announced that he was considering contesting as an Independent but the chief minister rushed to his residence to placate him, though the veteran leader did not reveal anything about his future course of action.

Discontent is high in two other constituencies -- New Guwahati and Guwahati Central -- where veteran leaders Siddhartha Bhattacharya of the BJP and Ramendra Narayan Kalita of the AGP, both former ministers, have been denied tickets.

Bhattacharya, who was instrumental in bringing Sarma into the BJP in 2015, said that he was not angry with the party though he was reticent about his involvement in the upcoming elections.

Kalita was peeved with the denial and the chief minister rushed to his residence as well to placate him. Bhattacharya has been replaced by Samaguri’s sitting MLA Diplu Ranjan Sarma, who rushed to the senior leader’s home to seek his ‘blessings’. The replacement of Kalita by veteran BJP leader Vijay Gupta has also raised the hackles of a section of the constituency’s electorate, as for the first time, a member of the Hindi-speaking community has been nominated for the seat.