Agartala, June 4 (UNI) The ruling BJP in Tripura secured a landslide victory in the Tripura East parliamentary seat and is poised to win Tripura West, and has won the assembly by-election to the Ramnagar assembly constituency, defeating its CPI-M and Congress rivals.
However, the victory did not make the state party leaders and cadres happy because of the BJP performing below expectations in West Bengal and at the national level.
Tripura Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha and BJP state president Rajib Bhattacharjee congratulated the people of the state for the massive mandate for the BJP candidates.
The two leaders said the BJP-led NDA is set to form the government at the Centre and Narendra Modi will be the Prime Minister for the third time in a row scripting history.
Although the BJP hasn’t performed as expected in some states, the overall performance of NDA was satisfactory and enough for forming the government, Bhattacharjee said.
He added, “INDI Alliance toiled hard to win the elections but the people of the country didn’t feel safe to give the responsibility to them. They must remain in the opposition and help the government to make the country prosperous.”
Regarding BJP’s result in West Bengal, Bhattacharjee said: “There is no democracy in Bengal. Trinamool Congress snatched the people’s choice by massive rigging, violence, and terror tactics. The people’s mandate has not been reflected in the result, which certainly the party leadership will look into. But the party won’t leave the ground but fight tooth and nail to restore democracy and citizens’ rights until they defeat the corrupt and anti-people government in West Bengal.”
All the senior BJP leaders including Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha and his cabinet ministers campaigned hard for a month in West Bengal for the BJP candidates and hoped the saffron party would cross at least 20 seats there. However, the saffron party has performed much below their expectations, which has jolted the party rank and file.
There was no report of violence and terror from any part of the Tripura, which has a tradition of post-result violence on opposition party supporters, taking place at the counting halls which continues for at least a week after every election since 1988. This seems to have stopped from this election.
According to the results, BJP candidate in Tripura West constituency, former Chief Minister and sitting Rajya Sabha MP Biplab Kumar Deb is leading in the seat by a margin of about 6,11,578 votes, over his nearest rival of INDI bloc from Congress Ashish Kumar Saha. While Deb has secured 8,81,341votes Saha is trailing with 2,69,763 votes, as per latest trends.
In the East Tripura parliamentary constituency, BJP nominee Kriti Singh Debbarman has won by a margin of 4,86,819 votes, defeating her nearest rival INDI bloc candidate from CPI-M Rajendra Reang. Debbarman polled 7,77,447 lakh votes while Reang secured 2,90,628 in the final tally.
In the Ramnagar by-election, BJP candidate and Mayor of Agartala Municipal Corporation, Dipak Majumder has won the seat by a margin of 18,014 votes, defeating CPI-M candidate Ratan Das. While Majumder secured 25,380 votes, Das got only 7,366 votes.
Ramnagar was won by the BJP in 2023, but in December last year, its MLA Surajit Datta died after prolonged illness, necessitating the by-election.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJP’s vote share was 49.6 percent in Tripura where its candidate Pratima Bhoumik won the Tripura West seat by a margin of more than 3.05 lakh votes against Congress’ Subal Bhowmik who left the saffron party just before the election after he was denied ticket. However, last year before the assembly poll Bhowmik again switched to BJP leaving Congress.
In the Tripura East constituency, BJP candidate Rabati Tripura had won by a margin of 2.04 lakh votes against his rival from CPI-M’s sitting MP Jitendra Chaudhury.
The BJP’s ally in the Tripura government now TIPRA Motha’s founder Pradyot Kishore Debbarman was Congress president during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, and had fielded his elder sister Pragya Debbarman against BJP from Tripura East but couldn’t perform.
Then he left Congress and formed a tribal based party TIPRA Motha in 2020. Weeks before the announcement of the poll schedule, Pradyot joined NDA and ensured the candidature of his other sister Kriti Devi Singh as a BJP candidate from Tripura East, whose candidature was questioned as she is married to the erstwhile Chhattisgarh royal family.
