Rajiv Bhawan. File picture

Guwahati, Feb. 25: The Assam PCC today issued a stern warning to its Lok Sabha ticket aspirants to maintain discipline as squabbling among nomination hopefuls is snowballing into a virtual mutiny within the party.

The warning came after a brawl between the supporters of two aspirants in Goalpara district this week. Trouble has also been reported from Lakhimpur constituency with two women aspirants — former Lok Sabha MP Ranee Narah and Bobita Sarma — exchanging unsavoury remarks. The situation is not different in other districts and constituencies either.

Party sources today said the leadership was alarmed over the developments and wanted all members to exercise restraint.

The PCC today rushed its tea cell chairman, Bhagirat Karan, to Goalpara as a crisis manager.

On Monday, the general secretary of the Goalpara district unit, Sanjoy Nath, an aspirant for the Guwahati Lok Sabha seat, was injured when his supporters clashed with the loyalists of the PCC general secretary, Sailen Bora, who is also seeking a ticket from the same constituency.

The Dudnoi Assembly segment in Goalpara district falls within the Guwahati parliamentary segment.

Dhubri, Goalpara, Lakhimpur, Guwahati and Mangaldoi are the district units most affected by the internal bickering.

“Our worst fear now is that the Congress itself might turn out to be its biggest challenger in the ensuing elections given the bickering going on within,” a Congress leader said.

Sources in the party headquarters here said the crisis was triggered by the party’s “wrong and confusing” selection process. At first, it asked all aspirants to apply for the ticket, which led to a race for the nominations. A whopping 126 people put in their applications for 14 seats, with each depositing Rs 15,000, which is non-refundable.

After the people applied for the tickets, the party asked its 27 district units to recommend a panel of nominees, preferably not more than three names.

“Here lies the problem. Those who have already applied for the tickets are pressurising their respective district units to include their names in the panel,” a Congress general secretary said.

Of the 27 districts, seven are yet to send in their names while several other districts, like the Guwahati city unit, have sent the names of all the aspirants having failed to narrow down the list to three.

Given the bitter conflict, it is unlikely that the party be will able to finalise the names of the candidates within another week’s time as claimed by chief minister Tarun Gogoi recently.

Congress sources here said all the districts will have to submit their list by Friday, when all the PCC office-bearers and ministers in the presence of chief minister will screen the list. After that, a team of two PCC office-bearers and ministers, assigned for each district, will tour the district to gauge the public support of the candidates recommended by the district.

On the basis of the report of these committees, the PCC will prepare a panel of candidates to be sent to the high command for a final selection.