Agartala, June 6: In all 24 candidates including Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha filed their nomination papers for the June 23 by-polls to four Tripura Assembly seats.
Tripura Chief Minister Saha, also currently a Rajya Sabha member and state BJP President, in his around three-decade-long political career for the first time would contest a direct election in the by-polls from the Town Bordowali assembly constituency.
Saha, who assumed office on May 15, a day after Biplab Kumar Deb’s resignation from top post, has to be a member of the state Assembly within six months. Accompanied by Deb and senior other state party leaders, Saha submitted his nomination papers on Monday, the last day of filling of candidatures.
The 69-years-old Congress turned BJP leader (Saha) would contest against six other candidates including Ashish Kumar Saha (Congress), Raghunath Sarkar (Forward Bloc), Sanhita Bhattacharya (Banerjee) of Trinamool Congress.
Of the total 24 candidates contesting in the four assembly seats, there are eight women candidates trying their electoral fortunes in the by-elections.
BJP and Trinamool Congress have fielded two women candidates each while CPI-M led Left parties and Congress have nominated one woman candidate each.
Multi-cornered contests would be witnessed in all the four assembly seats — Town Bordowali, Agartala, Jubarajnagar and Surma (SC) – between the nominees of the BJP, CPI-M led Left Front, Congress, Trinamool Congress (TMC) and other smaller parties.
The Congress has forged a tacit alliance with the leading tribal based party — Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance headed by Tripura’s royal scion, Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barman in Surma seat, reserved for the Scheduled Caste.
The politically important by-polls are considered as a semi-final before the early next year’s general elections to the 60-seat Tripura Assembly.
The by-polls were necessitated after the resignation of three BJP MLAs, and the death of CPI-M legislator Ramendra Chandra Debnath.
Amid open resentment by a section of BJP legislators against then CM Deb, three MLAs – Sudip Roy Barman (Agartala), Ashish Kumar Saha (Town Bordowali), Ashis Das (Surma), quit the BJP and the Assembly.
Roy Barman, also a former BJP minister, and Saha joined the Congress in February this year while Das joined TMC last year. Das last month also resigned from the TMC.
Elected from the Jubarajnagar constituency six times, Debnath was Assembly Speaker multiple times. He passed away on February 2 in Kolkata due to kidney failure.
According to the Election Commission’s schedule, scrutiny of the nomination papers would be done on Tuesday and the last date of withdrawal of nomination is June 9. The votes will be counted on June 26.
