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Priyanka Gandhi faces challenge from anti-CAA editor for Assam Rajya Sabha seat

Last Updated 10 March 2020, 13:05 IST

Badruddin Ajmal-led AIUDF has proposed the name of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as the common candidate for one of the three Rajya Sabha seats in Assam but veteran party leader Tarun Gogoi is pushing for anti-CAA editor Ajit Kumar Bhuyan for the same.

Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president Ripun Bora said the party high command would soon finalise the common candidate after consultation with AIUDF.

Party insiders, however, said the party is unlikely to field Priyanka and could go with a non-political person like Bhuyan, who was one of the familiar faces of anti-CAA agitation in Assam. "Both Congress and AIUDF are unanimous on the fact that an anti-CAA non-political person should be elected from Assam and so Bhuyan could be the right choice. Because people in Assam are very angry with BJP for bringing the CAA to give citizenship to a large number of Hindu Bengali migrants from Bangladesh. But everything depends on the high command now after Priyanka's name was suggested," he said.

Elections for three Rajya Sabha seats are scheduled on March 26. The seats of Bhubaneswar Kalita, Sanjay Singh and Biswajit Daimary will fall vacant on April 9.

The ruling BJP decided to give one seat to its alliance partner Bodoland People's Front and is likely to field Kalita for the second seat. Kalita, a former Congress Rajya Sabha member had switched over to BJP in August last year. BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma recently said the party would take a call regarding the third seat if the opposition parties fail to unite and field a common candidate.

Bhuyan's name was first proposed by Tarun Gogoi saying that an anti-CAA face should be fielded as a consensus candidate (Congress and AIUDF) to stop BJP from winning all three seats.

Bhuyan, a veteran Assamese journalist, who served as editor of a satellite news channel here had taken part in many anti-CAA meetings and has remained vocal against the amended act.

Sources said Bhuyan held a meeting with AICC in-charge of Assam Harish Rawat in New Delhi on Tuesday.

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(Published 10 March 2020, 12:49 IST)

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