GUWAHATI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which on Saturday announced the first list of its 195 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, denied tickets to five sitting MPs in Assam, which sends14 lawmakers to the Parliament.
The saffron party will contest from 11 out of the 14 seats in Assam. The party left two seats to Asom Gana Parishad and one to United People’s Party Liberal, both its allies.
The five candidates denied tickets include Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Rameswar Teli (Dibrugarh), Queen Ojha (Guwahati), Pallab Lochan Das (Tezpur), Rajdeep Roy (Silchar), and Horen Sing Bey (Diphu).
Meanwhile,11 candidates featured on the first list including Union minister and former Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal (Dibrugarh), Bijuli Kalita Medhi (Guwahati), Kamakhya Prasad Tasa (Kaziranga), Tapan Gogoi (Jorhat), Ranjit Dutta (Tezpur), Dilip Saikia (Mangaldoi), Kripanath Mallah (Karimganj), Parimal Suklabaidya (Silchar), Suresh Bora (Nagaon), Pradan Barua (Lakhimpur) and Amar Singh Tiso (Diphu).
Tasa is a former MP while Suklabaidya is currently serving as a minister in the state.
In Tripura, the BJP is fielding former Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb in the Tripura West seat, which is currently held by Union Minister Pratima Bhowmick.
In Arunachal Pradesh, the party renominated its two MPs—Union Minister Kiren Rijiju (Arunachal West) and Tapir Gao (Arunachal East).