Veteran Congress leader Bharat Narah quits party

way2barak, March 25: Veteran Assam Congress leader and MLA Bharat Narah resigned from the Congress party on Monday after his wife Ranee Narah was not given the  ticket for the Lakhimpur Lok Sabha constituency in the state. Congress named Uday Shankar Hazarika, who switched over from the BJP in December 2023, as its Lakhimpur candidate.

On Monday, Bharat Narah wrote to Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge, submitting his resignation from the party. Apart from being the sitting MLA from Naoboicha Assembly constituency, he was also the chairman of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee’s media cell.

Ranee Narah has been elected from the Lakhimpur seat thrice – in 1998, 1999 and 2009 – and has also served a term as a Rajya Sabha MP. She had also been appointed Union minister of state for Tribal Affairs in 2012 under the UPA government at the Centre.

Bharat Narah has previously been elected five times as MLA from the Dhakuakhana Assembly constituency – from 1985 to 2011 – three times as a Congress candidate, once as an Asom Gana Parishad candidate and once as an Independent. He has also been a Cabinet minister under Tarun Gogoi’s Congress governments in the state.