Former Meghalaya Governor Ranjit Shekhar Mooshahary on Monday filed his nomination papers as a candidate of the Trinamool Congress for the Kokrajhar Lok Sabha constituency in Assam. He was the first candidate to file nomination for the constituency, where polling is scheduled in the third phase on April 24.
Mr. Mooshahary told journalists after filing his papers that the TMC chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee would kick off her election campaign in Assam by addressing an election rally in Barpeta Road town under Kokrajhar constituency on Wednesday.
Mr. Mooshahary, a retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, who served as Director-General of elite National Security Guards (NSG) and the Border Security Force(BSF), is poised to lock horns with two former militant leaders who have been propped up as candidates.
One former militant leader-turned politician, Chandan Brahma, is presently the Transport Minister in Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi’s Cabinet. He was the vice-chairman of the erstwhile militant outfit the Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT). The second former militant leader was ‘commander’ of 709 battalion of the insurgent United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) Naba Sarania (known as Hira Sarania in ULFA).
Mr. Brahma is the candidate of the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF), the coalition partner of the ruling Congress in Assam. The sitting BPF Lok Sabha MP from the constituency Sansuma Khunggur Bwiswmuthiary has decided to contest as independent candidate. The BPF has warned him of disciplinary action and issued him a show cause notice. Mr Sarainia has been projected as a candidate of the Aboro Surakha Samiti, a banner organisation of groups opposed to the demand for a separate state of Bodoland and demanding exclusion of all villages with Bodo population less than 50 per cent from the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC).
The Congress has left the seat to BPF. It was the erstwhile BLT that signed a memorandum of settlement (MoS) with the Centre and the Assam Government to pave the creation of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC). The BPF chief Hagrama Mahilary, who was also the chief of the erstwhile BLT, now heads the tribal territorial council under Sixth Schedule. Former Rajya Sabha member and a senior leader of the Bodoland People’s Progressive Front (BPPF) Urkhao Gwra Brahma has been propped up as a candidate for the constituency by five organisations—the All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU), BPPF, insurgent National Democratic Front of Boroland(Progressive) currently engaged in peace talks with the Centre, the People’s Joint Action Committee for Bodoland Movement and United People’s Democratic Front(UPDF).
