Some prominent leaders of the Congress and the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) have gone to Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress or the Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF) led by Mumbai-based international perfume merchant Badruddin Ajmal. Some others have kept their doors open and are fighting as Independents.
Congress leader and former Industry Minister Bizit Saikia has filed his nomination for Tezpur on a Trinamool Congress ticket.
Syeda Anowara Taimur, former Assam Chief Minister and an ex-MP in the Rajya Sabha, has quit the Congress and joined the AUDF.
So has another veteran Congress leader, former minister Abdul Muktadir Choudhury, who has filed his papers for Hailakandi (North) as an AUDF candidate. Both Saikia and Choudhury were ministers in the Congress government headed by Hiteswar Saikia during 1991-96.
Taimur, who had headed a Congress government from December 1980 to June 1981, had sought a Congress nomination from Dalgaon LAC in Darrang district, which she had represented several times in the 1970s and 1980s. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said her resignation would not affect the Congress’s prospects.
The AUDF has not fielded Taimur as a candidate. Instead, she will campaign for the party “to focus on the corruption and misrule” of the Congress government headed by Gogoi, an AUDF spokesman said.
Not everybody in the AUDF is happy, though. Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Choudhury, working president, has quit the party’s selection panel after complaining of the “undemocratic” behaviour of Ajmal in selection of candidates. The list finalised by the selection committee was changed by Ajmal in an “undemocratic” manner, Choudhury complained.
From the AGP, senior leader Israel Nanda has joined Mamata’s party after the AGP denied him a ticket for Tinsukia. Like Taimur, Nanda, who had headed the AGP’s labour wing Shram Parishad, is not contesting. “I will be primarily campaigning for the party which is arranging two helicopters for the Assam elections,” Nanda said.
“A number of senior Congress leaders are making a beeline to our party and we have accommodated at least 20 of them so far. The most important among them obviously is Bizit Saikia in Tezpur,” said Debeswar Bora, state unit president of Trinamool Congress. Bora, who had first won as an AGP candidate in 1985, was with the Congress for nearly 15 years before switching over to Trinamool.
At least two senior AGP leaders who failed to make it to the party list are fighting as Independents. They include two-time minister Zoiinath Sharma and former education minister Jatin Mali. While Sharma, elected thrice from Sipajhar since 1985 but who had lost in 2006 is fighting as independent, Mali is trying to float a new party to contest from Palashbari constituency.
“We considered two basic points, winnability and young blood. And it is not necessary that the same person will have to be given a ticket every five years,” said AGP president Chandra Mohan Patowari.
At least one senior BJP functionary has quit the party to contest as an Independent. Ashokananda Singhal, who was an aspirant for a party ticket in the 2004 and 2009 Lok Sabha elections too, resigned after he was denied a ticket for Guwahati (West).
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