Guwahati: Yet another humiliating defeat for the Congress party in Assam. After much drama and allegation and counter allegation amongst the opposition parties for over a week, the ruling BJP and its alliance partner UPPL candidates won both the RS seats from Assam, for which the election was held on Thursday (March 31). BJP candidate Pabitra Gogoi Margherita comfortably won as the first choice candidate getting 46 votes in the 126-seat Assam assembly. BJP’s alliance partner UPPL’s candidate Rwngwra Narzary also won the second seat as the second preferred candidate of the ruling coalition, getting 44 votes.
The BJP coalition combined has the votes of 82 MLAs in the Assam assembly. But they got 90 votes in the RS election. One suspended Congress MLA, Sashikanta Das, openly voted for the ruling coalition candidate. But despite the strength of 43 opposition MLAs, the Congress candidate Ripun Bora couldn’t manage to win the RS election. Congress candidate Ripon Bora got only 35 votes.
Interestingly, the ruling party candidates got 7 opposition MLAs’ votes. Congress MLA Siddik Ahmed, who cast his vote wrongly, was immediately suspended from the Congress party. The Congress leadership alleged that Ahmed intentionally cast his vote to support the ruling party. After the defeat, Congress party representation in the upper house from Assam became zero for the first time after independence.
Reacting to the victory, Assam CM Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma tweeted, ” Assam has reposed its faith in PM Sri @narendramodi ji by electing two NDA candidates to the Rajya Sabha by huge margins – BJP’s Sri Pabitra Margherita (won by 11 votes) & UPPL’s Sri Rwngwra Narzary (won by 9 votes). My compliments to winners”.
