Minister for Shipping, Ports, Waterways and Ayush Sarbananda Sonowal filed his nomination papers for a Rajya Sabha seat at the Assam Assembly Secretariat on Tuesday.
The seat is one of seven across the country where elections would be conducted on October 4.
Mr. Sonowal currently represents the Majuli seat in the 126-member Assembly. His nomination to the Upper House in Parliament became necessary after he was made a Union Minister.
The Rajya Sabha seat was vacated by Biswajit Daimary, who contested the Panery Assembly seat as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate and was chosen as the Speaker of the House.
Mr. Sonowal filed his papers in the presence of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, State BJP president Bhabesh Kalita, Bodoland Territorial Council chief Pramod Boro and other Ministers.
The Union Minister had in 2016 become the first Chief Minister of a BJP-led government in Assam. Unlike that year, the BJP refrained from projecting him as the chief ministerial candidate during the 2021 poll.
This became apparent when the party’s central leadership chose Mr. Sarma as the Chief Minister.
