BJP's Tasa & AGP's Baishya file nomination for RS election

BJP's Kamakhya Prasad Tasa and its alliance partner Asom Gana Parishad's Birendra Prasad Baishya on Tuesday filed their nominations for the Rajya Sabha elections in Assam scheduled to be held on June 7, officials said.

Tasa and Baishya were named candidates for the two seats in the Upper House from Assam that will fall vacant as the term of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and another Congress Rajya Sabah MP Santius Kujur will end on June 14.

Both Tasa and Baishya filed their nominations before Assam Legislative assembly's principal secretary Mrigendra Kumar Deka in the presence of Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, BJP state president Ranjeet Das, AGP president Atul Bora and convenor of North Eastern Democratic Alliance (NEDA) Himanta Biswa Sarma, they said.

Tasa, a prominent face of the Tea tribe community, was a MP from Jorhat constituency in the outgoing Lok Sabha.

AGP veteran Birendra Prasad Baishya has been named earlier as the consensus candidate for the second Rajya Sabha seat of the ruling alliance partners.

The opposition Congress and AIUDF have decided not to put up any candidate in the Rajya Sabha polls as both parties do not have the required numbers to elect a Rajya Sabha MP from the state.

The last date for filing of nominations is May 31.

Singh has been representing Assam in the Upper House for five terms since 1991.

The former prime minister and his wife Gursharan Kaur are voters in the Dispur Legislative Assembly constituency here and had exercised their franchise in the just concluded Lok Sabha elections.