AGP in fix over Guwahati, Tezpur LS seats

GUWAHATI, August 16: Differences still persist among the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) leadership over selection of party candidates for at least two Lok Sabha seats out of the eight the party will contest in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. However, sources in the party maintain that differences will be sorted out and the party will to finalise the candidates on or before August 20. Three senior party leaders are keen to contest from the Guwahati constituency which was bagged by Congress in the 1998 elections. Former Lok Sabha member from Barpeta, Ataur Rahman, one of the party vice-presidents, Durga Das Boro and the general secretary of Asom Mohila Parishad and former mayor of Guwahati, Queen Ojha, are seeking party tickets Guwahati. However, a section of the party feels that Ataur Rahman should be given a ticket to contest for the Rajya Sabha seats which fell vacant following death of incumbent member Paragdhar Chaliha last month. The election to the Rajya Sabha seat will be held on August 30 next. Jayashree Goswami Mahanta, wife of chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, is also being projected by another section as the party candidate for the Rajya Sabha election. Observers feel in order to accommodate Jayashree Goswami Mahanta in the Rajya Sabha, Ataur Rahman may be nominated from Guwahati. On the other hand, though Kartik Hazarika, a former president of the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) is being tipped as the party candidate for the Tezpur seat, the ground situation is not rosy for him. A number of party legislators from the area are opposed to his candidature this time. These MLAs are in favour of fielding Koseswar Bora from Tezpur. They are opposing Hazarika on the ground that the former AASU leader besides being routed in the last Lok Sabha polls, does not have a strong mass base. In the 1998 election Kartik Hazarika was relegated to the third position behind Mani Kumar Subba of the Congress and I P Hazarika of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Koseswar Bora is being backed on the ground that he is a respectable leader in the party besides having a clean public image. In addition to Guwahati and Tezpur, the AGP is not yet decided whether to field former minister Debo Kumar Bora from Jorhat. He lost to Congress nominee Bijoy Krishna Handique by a margin of over 1,60,000 votes in 1998.