Breaking: Senior BJP Leader R P Sarmah Officially Joins Congress

Guwahati, February 24, 2020:

Ram Prasad Sarmah, the former BJP party leader who served as the Lok Sabha MP representing Tezpur (2014-2019) has officially cast off his saffron robes in New Delhi to join the Congress party in the presence of veteran leader Tarun Gogoi.

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The longtime BJP man has been hinting at his desire to leave the BJP ever since he was denied a ticket to contest the Lok Sabha election in 2019, reportedly at the behest of Assam Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Later, Pallab Lochan Das would go on to contest on a BJP ticket and defeat his nearest rival, Congress' MGVK Bhanu, by a handy margin.

Speaking earlier to Inside Northeast, Sarmah had informed “I will formally join the Congress party by 12 noon. I have a meeting scheduled with party organizational secretary KC Venugopal and other leaders now and accordingly, I will be joining the party.”

Sarmah also hopes that his joining the Congress will bolster the party in the polls, and said that at least a thousand BJP workers could follow him into the Congress fold.

“I sacrificed my 45 years for the BJP without asking for any benefit. I, along with a few others, worked day and night for the BJP during the days when the ruling party was different. We had faced lathicharge, stone pelting and everything else for the sake of the party to take it to a position that it is now. But they have forgotten the sacrifice of the party workers from 1980", Sarmah further added, lamenting his "mistreatment" at the hands of the new BJP brigade.

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