Guwahati: Tezpur MP Ram Prasad Sarmah, who has been denied a ticket from the constituency, on Saturday said he will form a new party after results of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections are declared on May 23. His outfit will bring together disgruntled leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party, he said.
The BJP on Friday declared that Assam Labour minister Pallab Lochan Das will contest from Tezpur. The Congress has fielded former Assam bureaucrat MGVK Bhanu from the constituency.
Sarmah had resigned from the party’s primary membership on March 16 after speculation that the BJP will field Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma from Tezpur.
Sarmah, who has been with the BJP for almost three decades, had accused “new intruders” in the party of neglecting long-time workers.
“I have been an RSS worker from 1976, the RSS is in my blood, so I can’t follow any other ideology or philosophy,” he had told News18 on March 17.
“After May 23, I will form a new BJP, along with all the old members of the party who didn’t get their due. The veteran members of the BJP are now being neglected,” he said. “There is no question of leaving the party.”
Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is also convenor of the North-East Democratic Alliance, was working with Assam BJP chief Ranjit Kumar Das and BJP National General Secretary Ram Madhav to throw out Sarbananda Sonowal as chief minister, Sarmah alleged. “All of them are tactically playing the game against Sonowal and his well-wishers,” he added.
Pallab Lochan Das, who will fight from Tezpur, expressed confidence that the BJP will return to power. “The aim of the Lok Sabha elections is to ensure that Narendra Modi is elected as the prime minister once again,” he said. “We received tremendous support from the people of Assam in the last panchayat elections. The people will be with us in the general elections too.”
The Lok Sabha elections in Assam will be held in three phases -- on April 11, April 18 and April 23.
Comments
0 comment