Assam minister Nandita Gorlosa joined the Congress on Sunday after the Bharatiya Janata Party denied her a ticket for the Assembly elections.

She had resigned from the BJP and as the minister of sports and youth welfare just hours earlier.

The Congress said that its candidate from the Haflong Assembly constituency, Nirmal Langthasa, agreed to step aside to allow Gorlosa to be the party’s nominee from the seat. Nirmal Langthasa had been named the party’s candidate from the constituency on Sunday.

Gorlosa had won the seat in the 2021 polls.

The BJP has fielded Rupali Langthasa from Haflong in the upcoming elections.

The state will head to polls on April 9. The votes will be counted on May 4.

Congress leader Jitendra Singh, who is in charge of the party’s Assam unit, said that Gorlosa had in the past five years been a “strong voice of Dima Hasao [district], consistently standing firm on her beliefs and principles, even at personal and political cost”.