Guwahati, March 10: Controversial BJP leader and incumbent MLA of Hojai Shiladitya Dev was denied ticket by BJP. BJP on Tuesday released a list of three candidates for the second phase of the Assam Assembly elections.

The saffron party denied ticket to Hojai MLA Shiladitya Dev and has rather named Ramakrishna Ghosh as the candidate from the constituency.

Hojai constituency is dominated by Bengali Hindus and they are a major vote bank of BJP owing to the promise to implement CAA.

Reacting to the denial of ticket, MLA Shiladitya Dev wrote on Facebook: “Finally I have been kicked out from BJP”.

During the anti-CAA movement, Dev had been very vocal in support of the act. Though Dev faced backlash for his support to the controversial act, many loved him for his support.

Earlier, when the Saffron party announced the list of candidates for the upcoming Assam Assembly polls without naming anyone from the Hojai constituency, Hojai MLA Shiladitya Dev had turned poetic to express his pain.

“Jodi Tor Dak Shune Keu Na Ase Tobe Ekla Cholo Re (If no one responds to your call, then go your own way alone),” Dev wrote on his Facebook profile, the famous lines of the Bengali song written by Rabindranath Tagore in 1905.

Hojai is Northeast RSS headquarter and Shiladitya Dev is an old-time RSS-BJP worker.

Last year, BJP MLA Shiladitya Dev termed revered scholar Syed Abdul Malik an “intellectual jihadi”.

Dev has been in the news for making controversial statements, mostly targeting one particular community, leading to even registering an FIR at the Silchar police station in 2018 for allegedly making provocative statements to divide Assamese and Bengalis.

“He was denied ticket by BJP because of his controversial statement. Due to his statement, the name of the party is in a bad name. Therefore, the top brass of BJP has decided to place new candidate from Hojai,” a part insider said.