Upsets galore in Asom poll

Guwahati, May 11 (UNI) The upsets shocked both the Congress and Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) as poll hardened veteran leaders fell and unknown faces walked away with surprise victory.

The biggest upset came from the Congress when the Chief Ministerial candidate and Congress state president Bhubaneshwar Kalita was humbled by veteran CPM leader Ananta Kalita.

His defeat had completely shocked the Congress since another Chief Ministerial aspirant Devananda Konwar also lost to independent candidate Kushal Duwari.

Anjan Dutta, one of the most successful ministers of the last government, lost to Pradeep Hazarika of AGP.

Similarly AGP lost Jagadish Bhuyan, Atul Bora and Birendra Prasad Baishya and even Brindabon Goswami was struggling in one of the two constituencies where he was fighting. AGP strategist Hiten Goswami also lost from Jorhat.

The sweetest surprise was Rupjyoti Kurmi, the Congress candidate from Mairani, the youngest in the fray. He defeated the big challenge of Alak Ghosh of NCP by a margin of 3000 votes.

''Even I did not expect such a big margin,'' joked Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who won with landslide margin from neighboring Titabor constituency.

As far as Prafulla Kumar Mahanta is concerned, it is the end of his political career as his party has been wiped out from the political scene.

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