Notification issued for Tripura bypolls, parties step up activities

AGARTALA, May 31 (IANS): With the Election Commission on Monday issuing the notification for the four key Assembly bypolls in Tripura, slated for June 23, various parties have swung into action.
Tripura chief minister Manik Saha, who assumed office on May 15, a day after Biplab Kumar Deb’s resignation, is expected to contest from the town Bordowali constituency as he is not a member of the Assembly.
Parties had begun their campaign and process of selection of candidates immediately after the EC announced the schedule of the by-polls on May 25. According to the EC’s schedule, the last date of filing of nomination is June 6, the scrutiny will be done on the next day and the last date of withdrawal of nomination is June 9. The votes will be counted on June 26.
The CPI-M led Left Front announced their candidates on Monday. The Left parties put up Krishna Majumder (CPI-M) in Agartala constituency, while Raghunath Sarkar (Forward Bloc) will contest from Town Bordowali seat, Anjan Das (CPI-M) from Surma (SC) and Shailendra Chandra Nath (CPI-M) from Jubarajnagar seat.
Political pundits say that the four by-elections will be a multi-cornered contest between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the CPI-M-led Left, the Congress, and the Trinamool Congress.
Few other smaller parties are also likely to contest the elections.
CPI-M’s Tripura state secretary Jitendra Chaudhury, Trinamool’s Tripura state president Subal Bhowmik, BJP spokesman Nabendu Bhattacharjee have separately told IANS that they would not forge any alliance with any other party in the by-elections.
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), Ashis 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 Trinamool Congress last year.
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.