Assam BJP MP Ram Prasad Sarmah quits party
Guwahati: In a jolt to the BJP in Assam, its sitting MP from Tezpur Ram Prasad Sarmah Saturday announced that he quit the saffron fold and alleged neglect of old workers by "new intruders in the party"
Sarmah said he was resigning from the primary membership of the BJP after serving the RSS and VHP for 15 years and the BJP for 29 years.
"I have left BJP today. I really feel pained in my heart for those old BJP workers of Assam who are most neglected in the party by the new intruders in the party," he said in a Facebook post.
Sarmah's name was not included in the party's panel of probable candidate for Tezpur Lok Sabha seat. It only had the name of Assam minister and NEDA convenor Himanta Biswa Sarma.
The list has been sent to Delhi and the names of the candidates for the 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam is scheduled to be announced Saturday.
"I felt greatly insulted when my name, a sitting MP and the President of Assam Gorkha Sammelan, did not find place in panel sent up by the state BJP committee," Sarmah in another post on the social media platform.
He, however, said that he would continue to serve the people of Assam and his constituency "till the end of his life".
Sarmah alleged that "old guards" of the party who had toiled for decades and brought the BJP to power were now "most neglected and ill treated".
"I was strongly raising my voice on their behalf. Now there will be none to raise voice for them," he claimed.
He thanked the people for their help, support and love for him and asserted that he will be still with the people of the constituency.
Sharma, who belongs to the Gorkha community, was elected to the Lok Sabha the first time in 2014 from the Tezpur Parliamentary constituency which has a sizeable Gorkha population.
His candidature was at stake since his daughter's arrest in connection with the APSC job scam.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
