Pradan Baruah, The 'Silent Lawmaker' From Lakhimpur Constituency (Image: X/@PradanBaruah)

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded Pradan Baruah from the Lakhimpur Lok Sabha constituency in Assam for the upcoming polls. Pradan Baruah, the party”s veteran leader, is a four-time MLA who joined the saffron party from Congress in 2015. He is also among the list of MPs who did not utter a single word in the outgoing Lok Sabha.

When nine Congress MLAs joined the BJP in Assam in 2015, Pradan Baruah was also one of them. Congress had earlier expelled Pradan Baruah from the party, citing anti-party activities.

Pradan Baruah is currently serving as the MP from the Lakhimpur constituency. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP leader defeated Congress candidate Anil Borgohain by a huge margin of over 3,50,000 votes. While Pradan Baruah secured 7,76,406 votes, the Congress candidate managed to get only 4,25,855 votes. It is to be noted that NOTA got the third highest number of votes from the constituency in the 2019 polls.

Notably, Pradan Baruah got elected from the same constituency in the 2016 by-election. The bypoll was held after Sarbanand Sonowal became the Chief Minister of Assam and vacated the seat. He defeated his nearest Congress rival by a margin of over 1,90,000 votes in the 2016 bypolls. Pradan Baruah had also represented Jonai Assembly Constituency twice.

According to a India Today NE report, the lawmaker has an attendance rate of 85 percent in the Lok Sabha that adjourned on February 9. However, there is a notable absence of verbal contributions by Pradan Baruah. It is worth mentioning that Sunny Deol and Shatrughan Sinha were also among the list of silent lawmakers.

Meanwhile, by announcing Pradan Baruah as the candidate, the BJP is hoping to win the Lakhimpur constituency for the fourth time in a row.