As suspense continues to prevail over the nomination of Assam Congress president, hectic lobbying has started between two camps of Assam Congress, one led by chief minister Tarun Gogoi and the other by PCC chief Bhuwneswar Kalita.
In what has also exposed the division between the party and the government in the state, chief minister Tarun Gogoi is camping in New Delhi lobbying with AICC for the nomination of Dr Bhumidhar Barman while incumbent PCC chief Kalita himself is a candidate and pressing for his third term.
Mr Kalita is at the receiving end as the Gogoi camp has been accusing him for not holding elections and authorising the party high command Sonia Gandhi to nominate the president.
If insiders are to be believed the Gogoi camp was also upset because its strategy to defeat incumbent PCC chief Bhuwneswar Kalita in election failed and detractors in the party succeeded in outsmarting them by authorising the party high command to nominate the president in which Mr Bhuwneswar Kalita is said to have a slight edge over his rivals.
This was quite visible when the chief minister went on saying that he favoured an election. “I was elected PCC chief through election. If the president is not elected through an election, the party will be finished,” he asserted at a press conference recently.
The nomination of PCC chief has become more significant as Assam is scheduled to go for general elections in six months.
The division in the party also came into focus when Union minister for mines Bijoy Krishna Handique reportedly called on Ms Gandhi on Tuesday and proposed the name of Dr Barman.
besides explaining the advantages of nominating him before the elections.
If it was not enough, the Gogoi camp is said to have motivated Muslim ministers and MLAs of the state to lodge their protest against Mr Kalita with the AICC. The Kalita camp is obviously not a sitting duck. Though, they are sounding confident to retain Mr Bhuwneswar Kalita for the third term, they are highlighting the failure of the Gogoi government, which could not get majority in its second term in 2006 elections, but retained all those ministers who were responsible for the debacle of the party.