Senior Assam Cong leaders under cloud over nominees’ defeat

Sanjiv Sinha

New Delhi, May 27: The performance of several senior Congress MPs in Assam, who played a crucial role in the selection of candidates for the recent Assembly polls, has come under the scrutiny of the party central leadership here. This follows a show below expectations in Assembly seats falling under their Lok Sabha constituencies.

Although the Congress was able to form a government in the state, the margin of victory in 70 of the 126 seats was far below the party’s expectations, given the high level of discontentment against the outgoing AGP regime and ectic campaigning by central leaders, including party chief Sonia Gandhi herself.

A preliminary post-mortem of the party’s performance has revealed that it did badly in areas where it has been traditionally strong such as parts of upper Assam and Barak valley, and that a large number of candidates of several MPs from the state lost badly.

In fact, party circles now clearly acknowledge that the victory in Assam was clearly more a fallout of the negative vote against the AGP than a positive shift of the electorate towards the Congress.

AICC general secretary in charge of Assam, Kamal Nath, is reported to have already submitted a detailed constituency-wise report to Sonia, listing the performance of each candidate in the recent polls as also that of the party’s 10 MPs in their respective constituencies.

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who met Sonia during his stay here last week, is also learnt to have apprised her of the reasons for the party’s ‘‘much below than expectation’’ show.

Party sources here said that among those ‘‘under a cloud’’ for the pathetic show put up by their candidates are senior leader and party MP from Silchar Santosh Mohan Deb, Tezpur MP M.K. Subba, Dibrugarh MP Paban Singh Ghatowar and Dhubri MP Abdul Hamid.

It is an open secret in party circles that Deb, Subba and Ghatowar played a key role in the selection of candidates for the polls and, between themselves, were able to corner a large share of seats.

According to party sources, as many as eight of the nine candidates put up by Deb in the Barak valley lost, making it a near wash-out. Ironically, of the 15 candidates in the Barak valley, the party won four of the remaining six who did not belong to Deb’s camp.

Subba’s candidates too fared badly, with as many as six of the ten candidates put up by him suffering defeat, including his brother S.R. Subba.
Of the eight candidates in Ghatowar’s constituency, Dibrugarh, four won but three, including his wife, Jivantara, had to face defeat. But the worst show was put up by Hamid, the party MP from Dhubri: six of the seven candidates in his constituency lost.

In fact, these leaders have been maintaining a ‘‘low profile’’ ever since the election results, while the central leadership here finds itself quite embarassed over giving their nominees weightage over those of other leaders in the state.