Guwahati, March 4 The opposition Raijor Dal on Wednesday announced its first list of 11 candidates for the upcoming Assam Assembly elections, a day after the Congress announced its nominees for 42 seats.
Although initially, the Raijor Dal was part of a Congress-led alliance, the seat-sharing agreement between the two parties has not yet been finalized.
Of the 11 candidates announced by the Raijor Dal, the Margherita constituency has candidates from both opposition parties.
According to the list signed by its president Akhil Gogoi, present Congress MLA Abdur Rashid Mandal, who joined the Raijor Dal on February 16, has been nominated from the Goalpara East seat.
Gogoi won the Sivasagar constituency as an independent candidate in the last Assam Assembly polls.
The first list of the Raijor Dal has not named Gogoi.
In the Margherita seat, Gogoi's party nominated Rahul Chetry, the general secretary of its student wing, Satra Mukti Sangram Samiti (SMSS). The Congress, on the other hand, nominated Prateek Bordoloi, son of Nagaon MP Pradyut Bordoloi, who had represented the constituency thrice since 2001.
Former Congress leader Ramen Chandra Borthakur has been named as the Raijor Dal candidate for the Jalukbari constituency, which has been represented by Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for five consecutive terms since 2001.
Gyanashree Bora will be in the fray as the Raijor Dal nominee from the Mariani constituency, which is presently represented by BJP MLA Rupjyoti Kurmi.
Kurmi was a three-time Congress MLA since 2006, before switching to the BJP in 2021, and became a ruling party legislator thereafter.
The other candidates named by Akhil Gogoi's party are Anjan Talukdar (Manas), Azizur Rahman (Dalgaon), Mehboob Muktar (Dhing), Alok Nath (Tezpur), Dulal Chandra Boruah (Sissiborgaon), Lakhyajyoti Gogoi (Digboi) and Ratan Dao (Bokakhat).
The Congress had on Tuesday announced its first list of 42 candidates for the upcoming assembly elections in Assam, with its state unit chief Gaurav Gogoi nominated from the Jorhat seat.
The Assam Assembly elections for 126 constituencies are expected to take place in April.
This will be the first assembly poll after the delimitation exercise, which was done in 2023.
Earlier, the Congress, CPI(M), Raijor Dal, Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP), CPI, CPI(ML) Liberation, Jatiya Dal-Asom (JDA) and Karbi Anglong-based All Party Hill Leaders Conference (APHLC) joined hands to fight the assembly elections from a common platform.
At present, the ruling BJP's strength in the 126-member Assam Assembly is 64, while its allies AGP has nine MLAs, UPPL has seven, and the BPF has three members.
In the opposition camp, the Congress has 26 members, AIUDF has 15 and CPI(M) has one MLA. There is one Independent legislator.