BJP’s sitting MP quits party over denial of ticket

GUWAHATI: Ram Prasad Sarmah, BJP’s sitting MP from Assam’s Tezpur announced that he quit the party and alleged neglect of old workers by “new intruders in the party.”

After serving the RSS and VHP for 15 years and the BJP for 29 years, Mr Sarmah said he was resigning from the primary membership of the BJP. However, he said that he would continue to serve the people of Assam and his constituency “till the end of his life”.

He took to Facebook to express his feelings and wrote: “I have left BJP today. I really feel pained in my heart for those old BJP workers of Assam who are most neglected in the party by the new intruders in the party.”

Mr Sarmah in another post on the social media platform said: “I felt greatly insulted when my name, a sitting MP and the President of Assam Gorkha Sammelan, did not find a place in panel sent up by the state BJP committee.”

The party’s panel of a probable candidate for Tezpur Lok Sabha seat did not include Mr Sarmah’s name and it only had the name of Assam minister and NEDA convenor Himanta Biswa Sarma.

The names of the candidates for the 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam is scheduled to be announced Saturday as the final list of deserving candidates has been sent to Delhi.

The “old guards” of the party who had toiled for decades and brought the BJP to power were now “most neglected and ill-treated,” Mr Sarmah alleged.

He thanked the people for their help, support and love for him and asserted that he will be still with the people of the constituency.

In 2014 elections Mr Sarmah was elected to the Lok Sabha the first time from the Tezpur Parliamentary constituency which has a sizeable Gorkha population.