GUWAHATI, Feb 18 ? The state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will have the first meeting of its election committee on March 2 to finalise the list of probable candidates for the 14 Lok Sabha seats in the Assam. The list will be sent to the central election committee of the party, which will meet between March 10 and 15, for the finalisation of the candidates.
The party, in all likelihood, will renominate its two sitting MPs in the state, Bijoya Chakravarty and Rajen Gohain in Guwahati and Nagaon constituencies respectively. ?Our normal convention is not to disturb the sitting MPs,? said party organising secretary V Satish during a press conference here this afternoon.
A massive stocktaking exercise in the party has already been initiated with senior leaders meeting functionaries and grassroots-level workers to discuss the BJP?s prospects and problems in all the constituencies, said party president Indramoni Bora. It would also help the leaders to assess the motivation of the party workers. The exercise began last weekend with meetings in the Barak Valley, he said. A similar exercise was carried out for Guwahati today.
The party?s top brass will meet party workers in Nagaon tomorrow to discuss the party?s strategies in Nagaon, Diphu and Kaliabor. The next venue for discussions will be Tezpur on Friday where Tezpur, Lakhimpur and Mangaldoi will be discussed. The next day is reserved for discussions on Jorhat and Dibrugarh. The exercise will conclude on Sunday when Kokrajhar, Dhubri and Barpeta constituencies will be discussed, said Bora.
?Everything will be clear by March 15,? said the party?s organising secretary V Satish. The party?s central observer Arun Sathe has already arrived in the state and the national vice president Pyarelal Khandelwal will be here on a two-day visit from March 1 to help the state leaders finalise the list of party nominees.
Bora said that issues, like the scraping of the gas cracker project and failure to have the IMDT Act repealed, would in no way hamper the party?s prospects. ?The works left out will be pursued again,? he said, while explaining that a Bill was tabled in Parliament to have the IMDT Act repealed but the ?Opposition wanted it to be referred to a Standing Committee. The Committee is headed by Pranab Mukherjee (of the Congress),? he said.
About the issue of granting ST status to the Koch Rajbongshi community, Bora said that the issue would be taken up again in the next session. ?We have not discriminated against any community. We are sincere in our efforts,? he said, appearing unfazed by the threats of some Koch Rajbongshi organisations to ensure the defeat of the party.
The BJP, meanwhile, has almost ruled out any political alliance in the state. As of now, the party is charting a solo strategy. ?Nobody from the AGP has contacted us till now,? said Bora. There is little possibility that the NCP or the NEPF will have any role in Assam. ?The NEPF role is limited in the hill areas of the region,? said Satish.
The BJP will contest the two Lok Sabha seats in Arunachal Pradesh, the two in Manipur and one in Tripura (Tripura East), informed Satish. In Meghalaya, the party will leave the Tura seat for PA Sangma to contest while it will try and put up a common non-Congress candidate in Shillong. ?The Congress has been winning in Shillong by default, we can easily defeat them,? he said.