GUWAHATI, May 20 � Even before the dissidence against the Chief Minister died down, the ruling Congress is facing another problem as a number of legislators have strongly opposed the nomination of Santiuse Kujur as one of the candidates for the ensuing Rajya Sabha elections. The aggrieved legislators have decided to approach the party High Command to voice their grievances against the nomination of Kujur.
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh is the first nominee of the Congress for elections to two Rajya Sabha seats, while, Kujur and Aminul Islam of the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) filed their nominations before the Principal Secretary of the Assam Assembly, who is the returning officer for the polls, today.
Opposing the nomination of Kujur, senior Congress man Anjan Dutta said that he, along with 25 other legislators, are opposed to the nomination of a new entrant to the Congress. He said that they would request the Chief Minister to allow them to vote for Dr Singh as their first preference candidate in the polls. �We are not going to break the party discipline, but we are not going to keep quiet. We are planning to meet party President Sonia Gandhi to ventilate our grievances,� Dutta said. He also said that the Congress president was misguided by someone and that is why she approved the name of Kujur as the party nominee.
Dutta said that though Kujur was claiming that he had joined the Congress in 2006, according to information available with them, he had joined the party only in 2009 and there were number of senior Congress men who deserved party nomination to the Rajya Sabha. He also said that there are around 65 lakh people of Koch Rajbonshi community in the State, which is around the same with the population of the Tea tribes. He said that the Koch Rajbonshi community was always deprived by the Congress. �The Tea tribes have a Central Minister and a number of Ministers in the State Cabinet. But the Koch Rajbonshi people are always deprived along with people belonging to the communities like Chutia, Moran Motok etc, he added.
