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Assam polls: Congress names 23 in second list, leaves 15 seats for allies
Congress announces 23 more candidates in its second list for the 126-seat Assam Assembly polls, leaving 15 seats for allies; Raijor Dal releases its second list with two names
The two main opposition parties in Assam — Indian National Congress and the regional Raijor Dal — on Sunday released their second lists of candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections, after their alliance talks collapsing earlier.
The Congress, which had released the names of 42 candidates on March 3, announced 23 more in its second list issued late on Saturday, taking the total to 65 for the 126-member Assembly. The party had earlier said it would contest 100 seats.
The Congress left 15 seats in its second list for its allies — Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP), Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) and All Party Hill Leaders Conference (APHLC).
The second list includes the names of sitting MLAs — Rekibuddin Ahmed (Chamaria), Wazed Ali Choudhury (Birsing Jarua) and Abul Kalam Rasheed Alam (Goalpara East) — as well as former Lok Sabha MP Abdul Khaleque from the Mandia seat.
The Raijor Dal, which had announced the names of 11 candidates in its first list on March 4, named two more candidates in its second list for the Naoboicha and Dhemaji seats released on Saturday.
The party had several rounds of talks with the Congress to forge an alliance of like-minded parties against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies. But the talks failed over seat-sharing disagreements between the two parties.
This will be the first Assembly election in Assam after the delimitation exercise of 2023, which saw large-scale redrawing and renaming of many constituencies but did not change the total number of seats.
