Lok Sabha elections 2024: BJP announces 10 candidates from Assam and Sarbanada Sonowal to contest Dibrugarh
Sonowal joined the BJP in 2011. He is a three-time Assam MLA, two-time Lok Sabha member and one-time Rajya Sabha MP.
Guwahati: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday released the first list of 195 candidates for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. According to the list announced by the saffron camp, Rajya Sabha member and Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal will contest from Dibrugarh Lok Sabha seat, replacing sitting BJP MP and Union Minister Rameswar Teli.
Besides Sonowal, the saffron party named ten other candidates from Assam for the general elections. The northeastern state has 14 Lok Sabha seats. Of the 11 BJP candidates in Assam, only four existing Lok Sabha members have been given tickets this time, while two others from Rajya Sabha will try their luck.
The remaining five, including a minister and an MLA, will contest the Lok Sabha elections for the first time. Sonowal, a former chief minister of Assam, is now a minister in Narendra Modi’s government and is considered trusted by the prime minister.
He was also a minister of state and held several portfolios before becoming the BJP’s first chief minister in 2016. Two-time MP Teli, the Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, was first elected to Lok Sabha in 2014.
He was also a two-time MLA. Teli is also the Minister of State for Labor and Employment. Sonowal, a former president of the influential All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), was an MLA (2001) and Lok Sabha MP (2004) from the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP).
Sonowal joined the BJP in 2011. He is a three-time Assam MLA, two-time Lok Sabha member and one-time Rajya Sabha MP. Another Rajya Sabha member Kamakhya Prasad Tasa was nominated from Kaliabor, which has now become Kaziranga after the delimitation of constituencies.
The seat is currently represented by Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi. Tasa, a prominent member of the BJP’s tea tribe, was a member of Lok Sabha from 2014 to 2019. The LS polls will be the first elections in Assam after the Election Commission of India conducted the delimitation exercise in the state last year.
The delimitation exercise was strongly criticized by the opposition parties, alleging that it was done only to help the ruling BJP.
(With PTI inputs)