• AAP withdraws candidate from Guwahati, asks Congress to step back on 2 seats

    Politics
    AAP withdraws candidate from Guwahati, asks Congress to step back on 2 seats
    The AAP has announced its nominees for the Dibrugarh and Sonitpur seats, and the Congress has been challenged to match the gesture by withdrawing its candidates.


    Digital Desk: The Aam Aadmi Party's Assam unit withdrew its candidate from the Guwahati Lok Sabha seat on Friday "for the sake of opposition unity" in an effort to defeat the nominee of the ruling BJP.

    The AAP has announced its nominees for the Dibrugarh and Sonitpur seats, and the Congress has been challenged to match the gesture by withdrawing its candidates.

    The Congress and AAP are both members of the 16-party United Opposition Forum (UOFA), Assam, which was established to compete in the state's general elections together. However, a dispute has developed within the forum as parties have announced candidates to run against one another in different state constituencies.

     

    In a statement, the AAP grieved that the Congress had chosen its nominees for the three seats for which it had previously selected its candidates.

    The AAP issued a statement expressing its dissatisfaction with the Congress for announcing its nominees for the three seats in which it had previously announced its candidates. 
     
     The historic party unveiled its slate of candidates for 12 seats on Tuesday, abandoning Dibrugarh to UOFA ally Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) and still not deciding on a candidate for Lakhimpur.

    Lurinjyoti Gogoi, the head of the AJP, was named as the candidate for Dibrugarh earlier on Friday. 

     In February, the AAP announced the names of its state presidents: Rishi Raj Kaundiniya for Sonitpur, Manoj Dhanowar for Dibrugarh, and Bhaben Chaudhary for Guwahati.

    The AAP noted that it had made "adjustments and sacrifices" in several states to defeat the BJP-led NDA, but said that the Congress had not shown the same generosity in Assam.

    The party maintained that because there was a delay in agreeing on candidates and UOFA constituencies, it had already announced its candidacy for the three seats a month prior.