By-polls to two assembly seats in Tripura are to be held on September 5. For the first time in more than five years, there will be a direct contest between the ruling BJP and the Left Front led by the opposition CPI(M).
The other two opposition parties, the Congress and the Tipra Motha Party (TMP), have decided not to field candidates in the two assembly seats and support Left candidates to prevent a split in the vote share of the opposition parties.
The CPI(M) has fielded Mizan Hussain in the Boxanagar seat and Kaushik Chanda in the Dhanpur seat.
The ruling BJP is fielding Tafazzal Hussain in Boxanagar and Bindu Debnath in Dhanpur seat.
CPI(M)’s Mizan Hussain and BJP’s Bindu Debnath are contesting for the first time, while Chanda and Tafazzal Hussain contested the assembly elections on February 16 this year.
The three main opposition parties in Tripura, the CPI(M), the Congress and the Tipra Motha, held a meeting on Saturday and discussed how to jointly contest the bypolls to the two assembly seats in the state against the ruling BJP.
Tipra Motha separately held meeting on Wednesday. After the meeting party said Motha will not filled any candidate in both the constituencies but not to campaign also for any one.
Same things said by Congress also.
Tipra Motha, Congress said they want to prevent division of opposition votes and ensure BJP’s defeat in the bypolls to be held on September 5.
That mean the contest is going to be held 1:1 between BJP and CPIM.
In the assembly elections held on February 16, the BJP got 40 per cent votes but retained power, while the opposition parties got 60 per cent votes.
In the February elections, the Left parties and the Congress contested together in a seat adjustment manner, while the TMP contested alone.
Union minister Pratima Bhowmik had resigned from the Dhanpur assembly days after she was elected to the seat as a BJP candidate. Since then the Dhanpur assembly seat was vacant.
The Muslim-dominated Boxanagar assembly seat fell vacant after the death of sitting CPI(M) MLA Samsul Haque. Haque died of a heart attack on July 19. Due to which by-elections were needed on both these seats.
