Ex-Nagaon DC Devasish Sharma named BJP candidate for Nagaon Lok Sabha bypoll

Former Nagaon deputy commissioner Devasish Sharma, who resigned from the civil services last week, will be the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from the Nagaon Lok Sabha bypoll scheduled for October 6.Rajya Sabha MP Tarun Chugh said the party’s central election committee had approved Devasish Sharma’s name for the Nagaon Lok Sabha bypoll (Facebook)In a brief statement issued on Friday, Rajya Sabha MP Tarun Chugh said the party’s central election committee had approved Sharma’s name.The Nagaon seat became vacant earlier this year after Congress MP Pradyut Bordoloi resigned in March and joined the BJP ahead of the April assembly polls. He later contested as the BJP candidate from the Dispur seat in Guwahati and won.Sharma joined the Assam Civil Service (ACS) in 1992 and was later inducted into the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and allotted the 2011 batch. He was appointed to the Nagaon district in June last year when he was shifted from the adjacent district of Morigaon.He resigned from service on September 3, and joined the BJP on September 8.“Sharma is a popular and well-known face in Assam. Besides being a successful bureaucrat, he is known for his social and cultural activities as well. He is a right person in the right party,” state BJP president Dilip Saikia said after Sharma was inducted into the party on Tuesday, a day before the Election Commission announced the bypoll.The Assam Congress has criticised the government’s hurried decision to accept his resignation and approached the Election Commission of India (ECI) to seek a probe into his tenure in Nagaon.In a representation to EC, Congress MP from Dhubri Rakibul Hussain said the civil servant should be held accountable for his decisions as the Nagaon DC. A high level probe should be ordered against Sharma to uphold the “purity, neutrality and credibility of the electoral process”, Hussain said.“The officer’s sudden resignation or voluntary retirement from government service makes the matter critically sensitive and consequential,” the representation to EC said.