In Tripura BJP retians power with majority seats, TIPRA on second

Agartala: In Tripura, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has managed to cross the majority mark without the support of ally IPFT.

The saffron party won 32 seats, while the CPIM, which had won 15 seats in the previous elections, managed to win only 11 seats.
Congress increased its strength from one to three. TIPRA motha, the party founded by royalist Pradyot Kishore Debbarman, however, emerged as the show-stealer by winning 13 seats that could help the party become the main opposition.
However, if the pre-poll pact between the Left and the Congress holds, it could also become the second largest political formation after the BJP-IPFT.

Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress has left no stone unturned to continue its losing streak as the party has gone blank in the polls.
The BJP’s return to power should be seen as a major development for Tripura as the party’s 2018 victory was largely attributed to the transfer of Congress votes to its constituency.

However, it is now clear that the party has built up its vote share in the last five years and opposition parties have eroded the BJP’s strength.
Although the BJP has won, many of the party’s strong contenders have lost.

Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Verma failed to retain his seat — Charilam in Sepahijala district which the BJP won by a record margin in 2018.
BJP state president Rajib Bhattacharjee lost to former Congress MLA Gopal Chandra Roy. In some important seats, the party managed to pick up the tag of the winner by a narrow margin.

Even Chief Minister Dr. Manik Saha has won this seat by a narrow margin of 1,200 votes. Several BJP MLAs could touch victory with a margin of less than 1,000 votes.
All these statistics have very well established the fact that the party has every reason to celebrate, but its performance in the 2018 assembly elections has only seen a decline. The BJP had secured over 43 percent vote share in 2018, but it had come down to over 38 percent in 2023.
Meanwhile, CPIM state secretary Jitendra Chowdhary won the Sabroom assembly constituency by a narrow margin of just 396 votes. As expected, Congress MLA Sudip Roy Barman retained his stronghold by defeating BJP’s Papia Datta.
Soon after the elections, Tripura Chief Minister Dr. Manik Saha told reporters that it was the work of party workers that led to the party’s majority.
“For the first time, Tripura witnessed a three-way contest. Even then our party managed to win the elections. I owe it to the tireless support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP National President JP Nadda. We will continue to work with the slogan ‘Ek Tripura Srestha Tripura’ at the top of our priority list,” Dr Saha said.
CPIM state secretary Jitendra Chowdhary said, “I want to thank all the voters of Subroom assembly constituency. The Election Commission of India has played an important role in making elections free and fair. I hope that appropriate measures will be taken to keep the situation peaceful after the results.
Congress MLA Sudip Roy Barman, who retained his seat with a huge margin of 9,000 votes, has said that the party will take stock of the lapses that had badly affected the party’s electoral prospects. Barman said, “We will certainly look at the impact on our party’s results.
On the other hand, TIPRA supremo Pradyot Kishore Debbarman asserted that the party will perform better in the coming elections in the coming days. “This is just the beginning of our party. More will come”, said Debbarman.