The Congress on Saturday released its second list of 23 candidates for the upcoming Assam Assembly elections, with the party so far naming its candidates for 65 seats in the 126-member House.
The party also left 15 seats to its coalition partners in the northeastern state, where parliamentary elections are likely to be held in April.
The Congress is led by a coalition of opposition parties, including the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and the Assam Jatiya Parishad, and the Communist Liberation Party of India (ML) also extended its support on Saturday.
Raijor Dal was part of the opposition alliance in the previous elections, but the arrangement was not implemented in the next elections. Its president Akhil Gogoi had won the last assembly elections as an independent.
In the second list of candidates, released by Congress General Secretary, Organisation, KC Venugopal, three sitting MLAs – Wajid Ali Chaudhry (Bersingh Garua), Abul Kalam Rashid Alam (Goalpara East) and Rakib Uddin Ahmed (Chamaria) – were renominated.
Former Lok Sabha MP Abdul Khaleq, who also served two terms as an MLA, has been named from Mandya constituency.
Other candidates in the list include Bipul Gogoi from Tengkong, Kartik Chandra Kurmi from Rangapara, Santanu Borah from New Guwahati, Kishore Kumar Barua from Dimuria, Nurul Islam from Srigangram seat and David Phukan from Tinsukia.
The Congress has allocated the Assembly constituencies of Baggali, Balsabari, Guwahati Central, Gureswar, Morigaon, Barhampur, Pindakandi, Bhali, Dibrugarh and Diphu, among others, to the alliance partners.
Assembly elections will be held in Assam for the first time since the completion of constituency delimitation in 2023, with seat boundaries redrawn without changing the total number of seats.
The Congress on March 3 released its first list of 42 candidates for the upcoming Assam assembly elections, nominating state party chief Gaurav Gogoi from the Jorhat seat.
The party, which took the lead in announcing the names of its candidates even before the election schedule was announced, said that Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly, Debabrata Saikia, will contest the elections from the Nazir constituency.
Former Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Ripun Bora has been fielded from Barshala constituency.
The Congress has been out of power in the northeastern state since 2016, while the BJP-led government is eyeing a third consecutive term. Currently, the ruling BJP’s strength in the 126-member assembly is 64, while its allies AGP have nine MLAs, UPPL seven and BPF three.
In the opposition camp, Congress has 26 MLAs, AIUDF has 15 and CPI(M) has one MLA. There is also an independent legislator.
