Feb. 23: Poll contests have come home to roost in the city. Among the aspirants for the Congress ticket for the prestigious Guwahati parliamentary seat is senior Congress leader Phani Sarmah and his glamorous bahu, Bobbeeta.

The race for party tickets among the two members of the well-known Sarmah family raised a few eyebrows in the party though. But sources at Rajiv Bhavan, the state Congress headquarters, quickly dubbed it as a “friendly contest”.

The sources said the two are among the 23 applicants vying for tickets for the coveted seat.

Sarmah was arguing his case as one of the seniormost party functionaries who also served as a Gauhati Municipal Corporation (GMC) administrator, while the bahu believes she has a better chance of winning as a woman and young candidate.

The Sarmah clan vouched that the decision to ask for a ticket for the same seat was “ a mutual one”.

“As a senior Congress leader, he should get the ticket, but in case the party decides to go for a woman candidate and a fresh face, I am there,” said the multi-faceted bahu. The state Congress spokesperson Bobbeeta Sarmah has also acted in several Assamese films and is the producer of the award-winning teleserial, Bideshot Apun Manuh.

Who is she lobbying for? “For him, of course,” she said, meaning her father-in-law.

Phani Sarmah also did not want to add much weight to the family duel. “She is just one of the 23 applicants for the same seat and it is upto the party leaders to pick one from the list.”

According to Congress sources, the other prominent Congress leaders in the fray are Tata Tea executive and son of Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi, Bolin Bordoloi, former MP Renukadevi Borkotoki, Assam PCC general secretaries Akon Bora, Haren Das, Kirip Chaliah and others.

“We have a good chance to wrest the Guwahati seat from the BJP and hence, it is obvious that there are too many aspirants,” a source said, adding that the election committee was finding it difficult to shortlist the candidates.

A meeting of the committee held at the chief minister’s official residence recently failed to reach any consensus with the party’s frontal organisations stoutly opposing the candidatures of several senior party leaders. They argued that only “clean, efficient and acceptable” candidates should be given tickets for the 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

But even a surfeit of nominees has its advantages, a Youth Congress leader pointed out. Each of the aspirants have doled out Rs 10,000 as deposits.