Guwahati: The BJP is confident that it will win all the four Rajya Sabha seats in the March 31 biennial elections for the upper house seats in three northeastern states — Assam, Nagaland and Tripura.
BJP leaders in the three northeastern states on Monday claimed that their strength along with their allies’ membership positions in the assemblies of the three states would facilitate to win their candidates in these states.
The two seats in Assam are currently held by Ripun Bora and Ranee Narah of the Congress, one seat in Tripura by CPI-M’s Jharna Das (Baidya) and lone seat in Nagaland by K.G. Kenye of Naga People’s Front (NPF).
In Assam, the ruling BJP has nominated Pabitra Margherita as its candidate for one Rajya Sabha seat while its ally United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL) has fielded Rwngwra Narzary for the second seat.
Narzary is the president of UPPL, which has seven members in the house and has a strong political base in western Assam comprising the four districts — Chirang, Baksa, Udalguri and Kokrajhar, bordering Bhutan and West Bengal.
The main opposition Congress has nominated sitting Rajya Sabha member and former state party chief Ripun Bora. Congress and All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) which parted ways after last year’s assembly polls has come together as AIUDF has announced to support Congress in the RS polls.
The Congress requires 42 MLAs in the 126-member House to win in one seat and the party claimed that it has support of 44 MLAs, including its own 27 members and AIUDF’s 15.
Two MLAs Sherman Ali Ahmed and Sashikanta Das — are under suspension.
On Sunday, Assam Chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma after meeting Das, claimed several opposition MLAs are keen to support the BJP.
In Nagaland, the BJP has put up the party’s Mahila Morcha president S. Phangnon Konyak as its candidate. The BJP with 12 MLAs is an ally of Nagaland’s United Democratic Alliance (UDA) Government in which NPF with 25 MLAs is a major ally and 21 members Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) is the dominant party of the UDA, which is an all party alliance governing the India’s first opposition less state.
The NPF and the NDPP have already announced to support Konyak, who after her election would be the first woman Rajya Sabha member from Nagaland.
Since Nagaland got statehood in 1963, the northeastern state had got only one woman Parliamentarian, Rano M. Shaiza, who was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1977 as an independent candidate. The state Assembly has never had a woman MLA.
In Tripura, BJP candidate Prof. (Dr.) Manik Saha’s win is almost certain as the ruling party along with its ally — Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura — has the strength of 41 in the 60 member house while the opposition CPI-M has 15 MLAs after the death of the party legislator and former assembly Speaker Ramendra Chandra Debnath.
However, the CPI-M nominated former Tripura Finance and Information Minister Bhanu Lal Saha as the Left Front candidate for the Rajya Sabha election.
The three seats of the Tripura assembly are lying vacant.
Dissident BJP legislators Sudip Roy Barman and Ashis Kumar Saha resigned from the assembly last month and joined the Congress.
Tripura Assembly Speaker Ratan Chakraborty in January disqualified another dissident BJP MLA Ashis Das after he joined the Trinamool Congress openly criticising the party and top leaders.
Courtesy: Siasat
