GUWAHATI, Mar 2: The BJP has released its first list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls from Assam with as many as five sitting MPs including union minister Rameswar Teli being dropped from the contest.

The BJP has changed candidates in 7 out of the 11 seats for which the list has been announced.

Union minister Sarbananda Sonowal who was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Assam in October 2021 has now been selected to contest from Dibrugarh Lok Sabha seat, a constituency he once represented from 2004-2009 before shifting base to Lakhimpur following a defeat.

Sonowal is replacing Union minister of State for petroleum and natural gas Remeswar Teli in Dibrugarh after the party dropped the minister following a ground assessment undertaken which indicated voter fatigue with the current MP.

Candidates for Kokrajhar, Barpeta and Dhubri are left to be announced and sources within the BJP hinted that the saffron party will leave Barpeta and Dhubri seats to its ally Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) while Kokrajhar seat will be given to United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL).

The prestigious Guwahati Lok Sabha seat is also seeing a change in candidate with sitting MP Queen Ojah being dropped and replaced by BJP state vice president Bijuli Kalita Medhi.

Another prestigious seat is Silchar in the Barak Valley where the sitting MP of the BJP Dr Rajdeep Roy has to be replaced as the seat has been reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) in the recently-concluded delimitation exercise. Assam state transport minister Parimal Suklabaidya will now contest from Silchar.

For the Jorhat seat, sitting MP Topon Kumar Gogoi has been retained by the party.

However, the sitting MP from Mangaldai constituency, Dilip Kumar Saikia, has been shifted to Darrang –Udalguri seat.

Another MP who has been dropped is From Diphu constituency in Karbi Anglong. Amarsing Tisso, who has been working as an Executive Member of Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC) will fight the polls as the name of the sitting MP Horensing Bey has been dropped from the list.

Sitting MP Kripanath Malla will contest from the Karimganj seat.

Suresh Bora will contest from Nagaon seat, while tea tribe leader and sitting Rajya Sabha MP Kamakhya Prasad Tas will contest from Kaziranga seat.

In Sonitpur constituency, former minister Raanjit Dutta will contest the polls, while sitting MP Pradan Baruah will fight from Lakhimpur seat.

In Tripura, former Tripura chief minister and Rajya Sabha MP Biplab Deb has been selected to contest from the Tripura West Lok Sabha seat. It will be the first parliamentary contest for the former chief minister who was replaced by the party just months before the state went to the polls in 2023.

The woman face of the BJP and union minister Pratima Bhowmik has been dropped from the list.

In Arunachal Pradesh, Kiren Rijiju will contest from Arunachal West Lok Sabha seat.

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