 "Sarabananda Sonowal")
The Bharatiya Janata Party today announced union minister Sarbananda Sonowal its chief ministerial candidate for the Assam assembly polls. The party announcing a chief ministerial face for a state assembly poll has been more of an exception in recent times.
The BJP didn't announce its CM candidate in all the state polls since the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, barring one. The party didn't declare a CM candidate for Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir and Bihar elections. However, it had named former cop Kiran Bedi as its CM candidate for the Delhi assembly polls of February 2015. The BJP had resoundingly lost the elections. The BJP parliamentary board made the decision in an hour-long meeting attended among others by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah.
Apart from Assam, other states going to polls by April are West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry. The BJP said its parliamentary board didn't discuss announcing CM candidates for other states going to polls. Assam is the only state of the five going to polls where BJP hopes to do well. It had won unprecedented seven of Assam's 14 Lok Sabha seats in 2014 General Elections.
Sonowal, 53, is heads the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs. He was All Assam Students Union president and Asom Gana Parishad leader before joining BJP in 2011. He was appointed Assam BJP chief in November.
