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| Kirip Chaliha (left) and Robin Bordoloi |
Guwahati, March 13 : The Tarun Gogoi camp proved its clout in the candidate selection exercise for the forthcoming parliamentary elections today by getting its bete noire Kirip Chaliha, the sitting Guwahati MP, replaced by East Guwahati MLA Robin Bordoloi.
The names of 11 Congress candidates were declared in New Delhi today.
Chaliha’s exit assumes significance because he was not only the sitting MP from the prestigious Guwahati seat, but also a bitter critic of the Gogoi regime.
Chaliha won the Guwahati seat in 2004 defeating BJP candidate Bhupen Hazarika.
Congress insiders said the development was an expected one as Gogoi was firm on cutting Chaliha to size to send a strong message to the dissidents.
“Though Chaliha has his backers in the AICC, who will probably rehabilitate him suitably later, it is the Gogoi camp which has won this round. It is also the message to the party rank and file to work unitedly for the party’s success in the Lok Sabha election,” a senior Congressman said.
The Gogoi camp is also said to be instrumental in getting Anil Raja, senior PCC leader, nominated for the Nagaon seat, instead of Bishnu Prasad, another strong claimant. The latter is known to be a Gogoi critic.
The nominations of Raja and Madhab Rajbongshi — named for the Mangaldoi seat — have taken the PCC by surprise, since both the candidates are from the Koch-Rajbongshi community.
“It is really surprising that two Koch-Rajbongshis have been nominated when there could have been nominations from some other communities,” he said.
Though the decisions for nominations for the Dhubri and the Lakhimpur seats are still pending, the Gogoi camp is backing Bobeeta Sharma for Lakhimpur against former MP Ranee Narah, who, like Chaliha, has been marked as a critic of the Gogoi regime.
Ranee’s husband, Bharat Narah, is a minister in the Gogoi cabinet.
In Dhubri, sitting MP Anwar Hussain is being challenged by Abdul Hamid, a former MP himself.
“But Hussain stands a better chance than Hamid as the latter has fallen out with the Gogoi camp,” a Congress insider said.
PCC president Bhubaneswar Kalita, however, said the candidates were selected on the basis of their “chances of success”.
The decision on the Dhubri and the Lakhimpur seats would be out “any time”, he said.
Of the nine sitting Congress MPs, seven have been re-nominated, one (Chaliha) has been dropped while the fate of another (Hussain) hangs in the balance.
The Congress will contest 13 of the 14 seats in the state, leaving Kokrajhar to its ally in the government, the Bodoland People’s Front.
The AGP has already declared the names of candidates for the six seats it will contest.
The BJP, which has entered into a seat-sharing arrangement with the AGP, is yet to declare its list.
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