Imphal, Jan 29: Many new ticket seekers have emerged and created a huge rush in Manipur BJP office ahead of Manipur Assembly polls. At the same time, many intending candidates have started switching sides to get political mileage.

Manipur will vote on February 27 and March 3 to elect 60 legislators.

Lourembam Sanjoy Singh, one of the intending candidates, on Saturday joined the National People’s Party (NPP).

Singh was one of the aspirant candidates from BJP but he joined NPP. He is going to contest from Andro seat on NPP ticket.

NPP national vice president and deputy chief minister Y Joykumar Singh said that more BJP leaders who are anticipating that they will not get BJP ticket will join NPP. So far, NPP has released a list of 20 candidates.

NPP is a partner of BJP-led government, however, it is contesting polls on its own. NPP is planning to contest in 40 seats.

Joykumar said, “Let BJP announce its tickets, and most of their winnable intending candidates who are not given tickets, will run out the BJP house and join us.”

BJP has recently asked intending candidates to ink “agreement of cooperation” to prevent them from joining other parties when they are not given tickets.

NPP had secured four seats and with the support of these MLAs the BJP, which had bagged 21 seats, formed a coalition govt in Manipur on March 15, 2017.