BJP, Congress announce candidates for Tripura polls, state braces for multi-cornered contest

New Delhi/Agartala [India], January 28 : BJP and Congress announced their candidates for the Tripura assembly polls on Saturday with the state set for a multi-cornered contest in the February 16 election for 60 seats in the state assembly.
While the Bharatiya Janata Party released two lists of 48 and six candidates, Congress declared 17 candidates. BJP and IPFT also announced that their alliance will continue. IPFT will contest five seats.
The BJP has fielded Union Minister Pratima Bhoumik from Dhanpur. Six of the party's sitting MLAs have not been given tickets for the upcoming polls.
Vimmi Majumdar, Subhash Chandra Das, Arun Chandra Bhowmik, Virendra Kishore Dev Burman, Parimal Debbarma, Viplav Kumar are MLAs who have been denied tickets.
Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha will contest the upcoming state assembly polls from Town Bordowali constituency.
The BJP came to power in Tripura - which was considered a Left parties bastion - for the first time in 2018.
BJP Anil Baluni and Sambit Patra on Saturday announced the BJP's candidates for the Tripura assembly polls at a press conference in the party headquarters here.
The list included 11 women candidates.
Md Moboshar Ali, who joined the party after leaving the CPI-M on Friday, will contest from Kailashahar. State BJP chief Rajib Bhattacharjee will contest the polls from Banamalipur.
"The central government has worked for the development of the North East, whether it is cleanliness campaign, water supply, home arrangements and other facilities have been made available to the public through many schemes," Patra said.
Tripura BJP state president Rajiv Bhattacharjee will contest from Biplab Dev's seat in Banmalipur this time.
Meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party Central Election Committee (CEC) was held on January 27. , Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah and party chief JP Nadda were among those present in the meeting.
The last date of nominations is January 30. Votes will be counted on March 2.
Later in the day, the BJP released its second list of six candidates for Tripura elections.
Congress also announced 17 candidates for the upcoming Tripura Assembly polls. Lone MLA of the party, Sudip Roy Barman, will contest from Agartala seat.
The Congress is contesting the Tripura Assembly elections in alliance with CPI-M.
The Left Front had earlier declared that it will contest 47 seats and had left 13 seats for Congress.
Of these 47, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) will contest 43 seats and CPI, RSP, Forward Bloc will field one candidate each.
Congress declaring 17 seats means there will be "friendly contest" between alliance partners on four seats.
The Congress also released the list of star campaigners for Tripura elections. The star campaigners include Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, party MPs Rahul Gandhi and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, chief ministers of Congress ruled states - Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel and Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.
The list also includes former Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot and party leaders Kanhaiya Kumar, BV Srinivas, Jignesh Mevani, and Alka Lamba
TIPRA (Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance) Motha has ruled out seat tie-up with BJP and is likely to fight alone. The Trinamool Congress is also likely to fight the polls alone.