- Saturday, April 27, 2024
The Indian national Congress picked Uday Shankar Hazarika for Lakhimpur constituency of the popularly elected Lok Sabha, which his wife Ranee had represented three times ago.
By: Shubham Ghosh
POLITICIANS quitting one party for another after being denied tickets to contest elections is not new in India. But now, a leader has made the headlines for leaving his party after it did not give his wife a ticket to contest the upcoming general elections.
Bharat Chandra Narah, who has been a six-time lawmaker in the north-eastern state of Assam representing the Indian National Congress in the state legislature, resigned from the party on Monday (25) after his wife Ranee Narah, a former federal minister, did not get the ticket.
The Congress picked Uday Shankar Hazarika as its candidate for the Lakhimpur constituency of the popularly elected Lok Sabha, which Ranee had represented three times before losing to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Sarbananda Sonowal in 2014, upsetting her husband.
Read: Modi’s BJP fields Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut, ‘Lord Ram’ Arun Govil in 2024 polls
“I do hereby resign from the Indian National Congress with immediate effect,” Bharat Chandra, a state lawmaker from Naoboicha, which is a segment of the Lakhimpur parliamentary constituency, said.
On Sunday (24), he resigned as the chairman of the media cell of the Congress unit in Assam.
Read: India extends export ban on onions, its ‘political’ vegetable, ahead of elections
Bharat Chandra had been a state lawmaker from Assam’s Dhakuakhana constituency on five occasions (1985-2011) before becoming one from Naoboicha in 2021. He was with Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), a local player in Assam politics, before joining the Congress.
Bharat Chandra has also been a cabinet minister in both the AGP and Congress governments in Assam in the past. He was once the press advisor to the late chief minister Tarun Gogoi.
His wife Ranee Narah is a three-time MP from Lakhimpur and has also served a term in the Rajya Sabha.
Elections in Assam will take place on three dates — April 19, April 26 and May 7.
Results for the general elections will be announced on June 4.
