Guwahati, Feb 3 Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today made it clear that serving bureaucrats who resign and seek tickets for the Lok Sabha election should not be encouraged.
Bowing to all-round criticism, the Chief Minister said officially the chances of getting tickets by these officers are very slim.
The Congress government faced huge embarrassment yesterday when State Election Commissioner C K Sarma resigned on Saturday and sought Congress party ticket the next morning.
Political parties as well as retired bureaucrats did not take kindly to it.
''Technically it may be right but ethically it is wrong, especially when you hold a constitutional post,'' said former Chief Secretary Haren Das.
But Mr Gogoi said the bureaucrat's chance of getting tickets was 'near negligible'.
''They just cannot come out of service and seek tickets. But there is nothing wrong in retired bureaucrats joining the party as so many army generals and bureaucrats joined the BJP,'' he said.
Yesterday, on the last day of filing application seeking party tickets for Congress, Mr Sarma sent in his official paper along with the Rs 15,000 non-refundable draft. He informed mediapersons that he sought to contest the Mangaldoi seat.
A long time ally of Congress, he had been under fire for sometime from Opposition parties for being biased towards the Congress.
Meanwhile, nearly 126 politicians have applied for the 14 Lok Sabha seats from Assam and except the Koliabor constituency, where the Chief Minister's brother Deep Gogoi is contesting, all the other seats have multiple applicants.
''This is a great development and that shows how much we are popular. In fact we made more than Rs 14 lakh only on the application fee,'' Mr Gogoi enthused. The money is being spent by the state Congress in buying vehicles.
The Congress has 10 seats from Assam in the outgoing Lok Sabha and is determined to retain all of them. But ally Bodoland Peoples Front(BPF) is confused as the Congress is likely to contest alone in Kokrajhar seat.
''We have not yet decided but in the past we fought friendly election. The BPF sought two seats and we have not yet decided,'' Mr Gogoi said.
UNI
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