SC body wants TMC tickets for all Assam seats

A delegation of a prominent Scheduled Caste organisation based in West Bengal with some presence in Assam proposed to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee that they want to contest all 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam in 2019 on Trinamool Congress (TMC) tickets.

The development took place on Thursday when a delegation of the All India Namasudra Bikash Parishad (AINPB) met the chief minister in Jalpaiguri district.

"We conveyed our proposal to contest all Lok Sabha seats in Assam on TMC tickets in 2019. She welcomed our proposal and said that she will let us know her final decision after discussing the issue within the party," Mukul Chandra Bairagya, working president of the AINPB, told DH after the meeting.

AINPB is part of a platform of 23 Bengali organisations in Assam known as the Bengali United Forum.

He also said that during the hour-long meeting, the issue of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam was a key agenda.

"We told the chief minister that those who have been left out of the draft NRC are mainly Bengali-speaking Hindus," said Bairagya.

The hour-long meeting was held at the branch secretariat of Uttar Kanya in Jalpaiguri district.