Agartala, Aug 28: With the two-day visit of BJP president J.P. Nadda, the saffron party in Tripura on Sundag began its process to fully gear up the party for the crucial polls to the 60-member Tripura assembly. Tripura Assembly elections will be held in about 6 months.
The National BJP President, soon after his arrival in Agartala, started series of meetings at the state guest house with state party office bearers, leaders of frontal organisations, ministers, Lok Sabha Member, MLAs, BJP core committee members.
Chief Minister Manik Saha, state party President Rajiv Bhattacharjee, Union Minister Pratima Bhowmik, former Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, central observers including Vinod Sonkar attended these meetings held one after another.
To give special impetus to the vital tribal vote bank (the state has 20 tribal reserve seats out of the 60 seats), Nadda would hold separate meetings with the elected members of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC), tribal leaders and MLA and leaders of the BJP-ally Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), a solely tribal based organisation.
Earlier, landing at the Maharaja Bir Bikram airport in Agartala, the BJP President accompanied by Tripura Chief Minister, State President and other leaders listened to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Mann-Ki-Baat programme at the airport.
Nadda was accorded a grand reception by hundreds of BJP leaders and workers at the airport and on his way to the state guest house on the outskirts of the capital city.
A senior BJP leader said that Nadda during his two-day tour (Sunday-Monday), would hold more than half-a-dozen separate meetings and also address a public meeting at the TTAADC headquarters at Khwumlung, 20 km from Agartala, on Monday.
“Besides gearing up the BJP organisation at all levels, priority of Nadda’s visit is to further strengthen the tribal front,” he said.
On Monday, Nadda, who is accompanied by his wife, will go to Udaipur in southern Tripura to offer puja to Tripureshwari temple there.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Saha and Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma held an important meeting in Guwahati last week with Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and central BJP leaders to chalk out the poll strategy.
BJP General Secretary B.L. Santosh, vice president Baijayant Jay Panda, and central observer for Tripura Phanindra Nath Sharma also attended the Guwahati meeting and discussed the strategies for the Assembly election, expected to be held in February next year.
BJP national general secretary and MP Dilip Saikia, the party’s central observers for Tripura Vinod Sonkar and Phanindra Nath Sharma are now camping in Tripura to make Nadda’s visit successful.
On the other hand, in a major setback for the ruling BJP in Tripura earlier this week, top tribal leader Hangsha Kumar Tripura accompanied by around 6,500 tribals belonging to the BJP and its ally IPFT joined the Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance, a major tribal-based opposition party.
