The BJP Central Election Committee (CEC) sat down for its first meeting for candidate selection on Saturday but not before two Members of Parliament tendered their resignations from the party: Prayagraj MP Shyama Charan Gupta and Tezpur MP Ram Prasad Sarmah.
The setback dampened the jubilation surrounding the large scale inductions from other parties into the BJP, including that of Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MP Balabhadra Majhi.
Another dampener was senior BJP leader B.C. Khanduri’s son Manish Khanduri joining the Congress on Saturday at a rally in Dehradun, in the presence of party president Rahul Gandhi.
Prayagraj’s MP Mr. Gupta, a businessman-politician, has joined the Samajwadi Party (SP) and will be contesting on that party’s ticket from the Banda constituency. He had been known to be upset with the BJP, and sources say, was among those who had sided with the Opposition on a parliamentary panel’s negative report on demonetisation.
‘Old guard neglected’
In Assam, Mr. Sarmah’s exit was possibly facilitated by State Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s plans to contest the Tezpur seat. This feeling was reflected in Mr. Sarmah’s Facebook post after he quit the primary membership of the party after having served three decades as a member. BJP sources said that his candidature was at stake since his daughter’s arrest in connection with the Assam Public Service Commission job scam.
“I have left BJP today. I really feel pained in my heart for those old BJP workers of Assam who are most neglected in the party by the new intruders in the party,” he said.
“I felt greatly insulted when my name, a sitting MP and the President of Assam Gorkha Sammelan, did not find place in panel sent up by the state BJP committee,” he added, in another post on the social media platform.
He, however, said that he would continue to serve the people of Assam and his constituency “till the end of his life”.
Mr. Sarmah alleged that “old guards” of the party who had toiled for decades and brought the BJP to power were now “most neglected and ill-treated”.
(With inputs from PTI)
