Five newly elected MLAs in Assam to take oath today

Guwahati, Nov 29 (IANS) Five newly elected MLAs who secured victories in the recently concluded byelections in Assam will take the oath of legislators on Friday.

Three MLAs are from the BJP while one each is from the ruling party’s two allies -- Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL).

Congress drew a blank in the bypolls despite contesting all five seats that went to byelections. The opposition party lost its bastion in the Samaguri Assembly constituency as Congress heavyweight and Dhubri MP Rakibul Hussain’s son Tanzil Hussain was defeated by BJP’s Diplu Ranjan Sarmah.

Rakibul Hussain alleged that the BJP conducted wide-scale rigging in the byelection in Samaguri Assembly seat. Hussain has been representing Samaguri in the Assembly since 2001 and he vacated this seat after winning Lok Sabha polls this year. Rakibul Hussain said, “Votes were rigged in numerous polling booths under Samaguri Assembly constituency. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma used administrative machinery to ensure the defeat of my son in the by-election.”

Five Assembly seats in Assam -- Dholai, Behali, Samaguri, Bongaigaon, and Sidli went to bypolls as the legislators in these seats were elected to the Lok Sabha in the general elections this year.

Except for Samaguri, the other four constituencies were held by the BJP and its allies -- AGP and UPPL.

The BJP has retained two constituencies -- Dholai and Behali with Nihar Ranjan Das and Diganta Ghatowal comfortably winning these two constituencies in the byelection. The ruling party breached Congress bastion in Samaguri with the win of Diplu Ranjan Sarmah here.

The AGP also won the Bongaigaon seat by a margin of 35,164 votes. Diptimayee Choudhury won on the AGP’s ticket. Her husband and now a Lok Sabha MP from Barpeta -- Phanibhusan Choudhury was a six-time MLA from the Bongaigaon seat.

Another ally of the BJP, UPPL also won the byelection in the Sidli Assembly constituency defeating his nearest candidate by 37,016 votes.

--IANS

tdr/dpb