Amit Shah will manage 543 Lok Sabha seats and still contest Gandhi Nagar Lok Sabha constituency but Dr Himanta Biswa Sharma cannot because he has to take care of 25 Lok Sabha constituencies of the North East.
This reasoning of the BJP high command has not gone down well amongst the BJP state leadership and ground level workers but more evident in Tezpur Lok Sabha constituency where there was a spontaneous enthusiasm forgetting someone "Assamese" to vote.
The cultural capital of Assam, Tezpur has not had a Lok Sabha representative from mainstream Assamese community since 1998 when Ishwar Prasanna Hazarika briefly represented the constituency.
The constituency has 33 per cent Assamese and 11 per cent Nepali voters but yet out of last 7 MPs, 5 are Nepalese.
"Honestly I am very much disappointed that he would not be contesting. I do not understand politics. But all I want to know if Amit Shah can contest why not Himanta Biswa Sarma. What is to manage so much in these 25 setas?" said Anjan Bhagawati from Jamuguri.
This is also the question amongst the BJP men. There is not much to do in NEDA. In Mizoram and Meghalaya, the BJP are a fringe player and their participation in Lok Sabha is symbolic. In 4 states, they have their own government and already a robust mechanism is in place. So it was an easy job, Dr Sharma.
So the questions are – Was it a political or technical reason?
If it is political?
Dr Himanta Biswa's Sharma's exceptional rise and a groundswell of support is a threat to many including Ram Madhav to Amit Shah and Narendra Modi. The Amit Shah-Narendra Modi duo is known for disliking of regional strong players and especially if they are young. There are talks that Dr Sharma's wing was clipped and then panned to exploit his election network by making some soft statement through Twitter to soften up Dr Sharma. This method was already used and Dr Sharma seems to have lapped it both personally and through his controlled local media of Assam.
If It is technical?
If it is a technical owing the Shrada scam it is even more delicate. The BJP has realized that CAB was not going to stick on Bengal political wall and Sharada has to be revived. In this plan, Dr Sharma is a big thorn as his name figure prominently in his long complaint letter of accused Sudipto Bose. Although Assam media has been fed that Dr Shrama has been given clean shit by CBI, the truth is that the CBI has not filed the final charge sheet of Sharada yet. So BJP did not risk him by giving a ticket and then making a Union Minister and giving enough ammunition to Opposition to rock their boat for the next 5 years.
Dr Sharma's signature gung ho body language during an election was missing although he appeared by the side of Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal at Dibrugarh yesterday for the filing of nomination papers of Rameshwar Teli.
A go-slow Dr Sharma is a piece of bad news for BJP as he has all the network.
