BJP Fields Kripanath Mallah To Retain Karimganj (Image: Facebook/ Kripanath Mallah)

The BJP is all set to contest in 11 constituencies in Assam in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls. BJP allies AGP and UPPL will contest in the remaining three seats. On Sunday, the party released a revised list of candidates for Assam seats. The party has picked Kripanath Mallah to contest from the Karimganj Lok Sabha constituency. It is worth mentioning that the BJP has nine MPs in the outgoing Lok Sabha from Assam.

BJP leader Kripanath Mallah is looking for a second term from the Karimganj seat. In the previous Lok Sabha elections, Kripanath Mallah won the constituency by defeating the AIUDF’s Radheshyam Biswas. It is to be noted that Radheshyam Biswas was the sitting MP, who won the seat in 2014 with a margin of over one lakh votes.

Kripanath Mallah secured 4,73,046 votes from the Karimganj constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, and his winning margin was 38,389 votes. Notably, Kripanath Mallah was earlier with the Congress party. He had also won the 2003 by-election and the 2011 Assembly polls as a Congress candidate. In 2015, when nine Congress MLAs joined the BJP in Assam, Kripanath Mallah was also among them. Assam Congress had already issued a show cause notice to Kripanath Mallah earlier for “anti-party activities.”

In the 2016 Assam Assembly elections, Kripanath Mallah contested from the Ratabari legislative assembly constituency as a BJP candidate. He secured a total of 53,975 votes and won the seat with a margin of 24,526 votes. In 2018, Kripanath Mallah was elected unanimously as the Deputy Speaker of the Assam Assembly. He was elected to this post after BJP leader Dilip Kumar Paul resigned, citing personal issues.