A day after the Congress announced a first list of 42 candidates for the upcoming assembly elections, its ally Raijor Dal followed suit announcing a list of 11 candidates.
These announcements by both parties have been made even before the seat-sharing arrangement – something that the two parties have locked horns over – has been finalised. The lists also indicate differences between the two parties on seat-sharing.
Of the 11 candidates the Raijor Dal – a regional party led by Sivasagar MLA Akhil Gogoi formed in the aftermath of the 2019-2020 agitation in Assam against the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act – one is student leader Rahul Chetry from the Margherita constituency in Upper Assam. On Tuesday, the Congress had also announced its candidate for the Margherita constituency: Prateek Bordoloi, who is the son of current Nagaon MP Pradyut Bordoloi. Pradyut Bordoloi had himself represented the Margherita constituency four times till 2016.
Among the Raijor Dal’s candidates is also a recent joinee from the Congress: it has fielded Abdur Rashid Mandal, the incumbent three-time MLA from the Goalpara West constituency, who had joined the Raijor Dol two weeks ago.
The party has also announced that this is only its first list of candidates. Its leader Akhil Gogoi does not feature in the first list of candidates.
