BJP nominates Pallab Lochan Das from Tezpur LS seat in Assam

Das had joined the saffron party along with Finance Minister Himanta Sarma and several other Congress leaders in 2016

The BJP has named Assam Minister Pallab Lochan Das as its candidate for Tezpur Lok Sabha constituency, replacing sitting MP Ram Prasad Sharma who quit the party on March 16 alleging "neglect by the new intruders".

The saffron party released on Friday its second list of candidates for the Lok Sabha polls containing 36 names, including that of Lochan, who holds the portfolios of labour ministry and tea tribes welfare in Assam.

Das was elected from Rangapara constituency to the Assam Assembly in 2011 on a Congress ticket. He joined the saffron party along with Finance Minister Himanta Sarma and several other Congress leaders in 2016.

He was appointed minister of state (MoS) for power in the Sarbananda Sonowal-led government on the year of his joining the saffron party, and was later accorded MoS (independent) charge of labour welfare, tea tribe welfare and education departments in a reshuffle.

Tezpur will be going to polls in the first phase on April 11, when Das will lock horns with Congress candidate MGVK Bhanu, a retired IAS bureaucrat.

In a Facebook post on March 16, Sharma, the sitting MP from the parliamnetary constituency, had said, "I have left BJP today. I really feel pained in my heart for those old BJP workers of Assam who are neglected in the party by the new intruders."

He also alleged that the "old guards of the party who toiled for decades and brought the BJP to power without any other support were being neglected and ill treated".

"I was strongly raising my voice on their behalf (old guards). Now there will be none to raise voice for them," added Sharma, who was elected for the first time to the Lok Sabha in 2014 from the Tezpur parliamentary constituency that has a sizeable Gorkha population.

The Lok Sabha MP claimed that he resigned from the primary membership of the BJP after serving the RSS/VHP for 15 years and the saffron party for 29 years.

"I felt greatly insulted when my name, a sitting MP and the president of Assam Gorkha Sammelan, did not find place in a panel set up by the state BJP committee," he added.

According to sources, Sharma's candidature came at stake following his daughter's arrest in connection with the APSC job scam, where she was earlier selected as a Assam Police Service officer.

The three-phase election for 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam will be held on April 11, 18 and 23.