Sonowal joined the BJP in 2011. He is a three-time Assam MLA, two-time Lok Sabha member and one-time Rajya Sabha MP.
Guwahati: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday released the first list of 195 candidates for Lok Sabha Elections 2024. As per the list announced by the saffron camp, Rajya Sabha Member and Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal will contest from Dibrugarh Lok Sabha seat, replacing incumbent BJP MP and Union Minister Rameswar Teli.
Apart from Sonowal, the saffron party named 10 other candidates from Assam for the general elections. The northeastern state has 14 Lok Sabha seats. Of the 11 BJP candidates in Assam, only four existing Lok Sabha members have got tickets this time, while two others from Rajya Sabha will try their luck.
The remaining five, including a state minister and an MLA, will contest the Lok Sabha polls for the first time. Sonowal, former chief minister of Assam, is now a cabinet minister in the Narendra Modi government and is considered to be trusted by the prime minister.
He was also a state minister and held various portfolios before becoming the first chief minister from the BJP in 2016. Two-time MP Teli, the union minister of state for petroleum and natural gas, was first elected to Lok Sabha in 2014.
He was also a two-time MLA. Teli is also the union minister of state for labour and employment. Sonowal, a former president of the influential All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), was an MLA (2001) and Lok Sabha MP (2004) of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP).
Sonowal joined the BJP in 2011. He is a three-time Assam MLA, two-time Lok Sabha member and one-time Rajya Sabha MP. Another Rajya Sabha Member Kamakhya Prasad Tasa was nominated from Kaliabor, which has now become Kaziranga after the delimitation of constituencies.
The seat is presently represented by Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi. Tasa, a prominent tea-tribe member of the BJP, was a Lok Sabha member from 2014 to 2019. The LS polls will be the first election in Assam after the Election Commission of India carried out the delimitation exercise in the state last year.
The delimitation exercise was strongly criticised by the opposition parties, alleging that it was done to help the ruling BJP only.
(With PTI Inputs)