Guwahati/Doomdooma: The BJP and Congress have each named 40-member star-campaigner teams for the Nagaon Lok Sabha bypoll, while AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal’s entry has set up a contest involving the BJP, Congress and AIUDF ahead of the October 6 vote.
The main candidates are BJP’s Devashish Sharma, Congress nominee Sibamoni Bora and AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal. The Election Commission has scheduled polling for October 6 and counting for October 9. The seat fell vacant after the resignation of former Congress MP Pradyut Bordoloi, who defected to BJP ahead of 2026 Assembly elections.
The BJP’s 40-member campaign team is headed by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and includes Union ministers Sarbananda Sonowal and Pabitra Margherita, state BJP president Dilip Saikia, ministers, MPs and senior organisational leaders.
The Congress has also named a 40-member star-campaigner panel, including Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president Gaurav Gogoi, MP Rakibul Hussain and Assam in-charge Bhupesh Baghel. National leaders Pawan Khera, Supriya Shrinate, Srinivas B V and Kanhaiya Kumar are also part of the panel.
The deployment of senior leaders by the two major parties comes as campaigning intensifies ahead of the bypoll.
The final field, however, extends beyond the three principal contenders, with 15 candidates remaining in the fray after the withdrawal of three nominations on the final day.
Following scrutiny, 18 candidates had been found eligible to contest. Those who subsequently withdrew were All India Trinamool Congress candidate Abdul Salam, Nava Rang Congress Party candidate Karimullah Sheikh and Independent candidate Purushottam Behera.
Earlier, seven nomination papers were rejected from among the 25 nominations filed. The rejected candidates were Independents Shah Alam, Pranab Kaushik, Rabul Haque, Khalil Uddin, Samsul Alam and Sikandar Ali, and Jay Prakash Janta Dal candidate Pankaj Maurya.
The final list includes BJP’s Devashish Sharma, Congress’s Sibamoni Bora, AIUDF’s Badruddin Ajmal, Socialist Unity Centre of India’s (Communist) Bornali Sharma, National Road Map Party’s Hafiz Burhanuddin, RCPI (RB)’s Inamul Huda and Independents Ayush Kumar Singh, Farooq Khan, Saifur Rahman, Mustakim Alam, Amiran Hussain, Manirul Hussain, Sabina Yasmin, Nazrul Islam and Yunus Tamuli.
With 15 candidates in the race, campaigning is set to continue ahead of polling on October 6, with the counting of votes scheduled for October 9.