Agartala, Mar 02, 2023, TRIPURA TIMES Desk
Key Highlight: Cong-CPM alliance suffers major setback, Tipra Motha becomes second largest party, PM congratulates for party’s victory
Agartala, Feb 02: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its alliance partner IPFT retained power in Tripura with a comfortable majority; the alliance has won 33 out of 60 seats.
As expected, the Left Front and Congress alliance and their narrative failed to impress the voters. While CPM could hardly secure 11 seats, the Congress managed to win 3 seats.
Tipra Motha emerged as the key opposition party by winning 13 out of 60 seats. BJP’s alliance partner IPFT fought in five seats and secured victory in one seat- Jolaibari.
BJP’s vote share in the assembly polls stands at 39 per cent followed by CPM 24.6 per cent, Congress 8.56 per cent and Tipra Motha around 20 per cent.
Chief Minister Dr. Manik Saha, who faced a tough contest in the Town Bordowali seat, became the winner. Union Minister Pratima Bhowmik, who fought from Dhanpur seat, also secured victory.
Among the notables, Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma and BJP state president Rajib Bhattacharjee along with three sitting MLAs- Sankar Roy (Sabroom), Dr. Dilip Kumar Das (Barjala) and Krishnadhan Das (Bamutia) of BJP and Chief Executive Member of TTAADC Purna Chandra Jamatia of Tipra Motha, and CPM sitting MLAs- Ratan Bhowmik, Sudhan Das and Bijita Nath lost the poll battle.
The BJP ministers- Rampada Jamatia (Bagma), Sushanta Chowdhury (Majlishpur), Ratan Lal Nath (Mohanpur) and Ram Prasad Paul (Surjyamaninagar) along with Assembly Speaker Ratan Chakraborty (Khayerpur), Deputy Speaker Biswa Bandhu Sen (Dharmanagar), veteran BJP leader Surajit Datta (Ramnagar) were also re-elected to the state Assembly.
On the other hand, Congress’ Sudip Roy Barman (Agartala), Gopal Roy (Banamalipur) and Birajit Sinha (Kailashahar) secured victory.
After the BJP’s win, many of the people said that good governance and clean image of Chief Minister Dr. Manik Saha, who took over charge only 10 months before the election and worked hard, helped the party achieve this ‘historic’ victory.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president J.P. Nadda congratulated the people of Tripura for this win of BJP.
“Thank you Tripura! This is a vote for progress and stability. BJP Tripura will continue to boost the state's growth trajectory. I am proud of all Tripura BJP Karyakartas for their spectacular efforts at the grassroots,” the Prime Minister wrote on social media.
The counting of votes commenced at 8 am in 21 centres with the postal ballots. By 12 pm, there was a clear trend. There were tight security arrangements in all counting centres. The counting process was peaceful except for some stray incidents.