AGARTALA (The Thursday Times) — The BJP has won 77 seats in five of Tripura’s civic bodies without a vote being cast, the State Election Commission said, as the CPI(M) alleged that its candidates in the town of Ambassa were abducted and threatened into pulling out. The commission says no such incident took place.
The unopposed wins came in Mohanpur, Kamalpur, Jirania, Ranirbazar, and Santirbazar, where returning officers declared BJP candidates elected after nominations were scrutinised and the deadline for withdrawals passed on Tuesday.
Polling for the remaining 268 of the 345 seats across 21 urban local bodies, including the Agartala Municipal Corporation, will be held on November 27. Votes will be counted on December 3.
State Election Commissioner Pradeep Kumar Chakravarty said 810 candidates were left in the fray, with the BJP fielding 342, more than any other party. He said 49 candidates withdrew before the deadline: 23 from the CPI(M), 15 from the Congress, five from TIPRA Motha, and six from other parties. No BJP candidate withdrew.
Commission says there was no incident
Chakravarty said the commission had asked the district magistrate and the superintendent of police of Dhalai district for reports after complaints that nominations had been withdrawn by force. “Ground reports show that there was no such instance at Ambassa or elsewhere in Dhalai district,” he said.
What the CPI(M) says
CPI(M) state secretary Jitendra Chaudhury rejected that, saying the party’s candidates in Ambassa were forced to withdraw on Tuesday after threats, intimidation, and attacks on their homes. The party’s local committee said all 15 of the candidates it had fielded for Ambassa Municipal Council had pulled out.
At a press conference in Ambassa, party leaders alleged that their ward 9 candidate, Sujit Ghosh, was assaulted at a tea stall in Chandraichhara on Monday morning by men who arrived in about three vehicles, and was forced into a car. By the time he was released, they said, his nomination had been withdrawn.
They alleged that armed, masked men then visited the homes of other candidates that evening, including ward 4 candidate Kajal Dev, warning of “consequences” if they did not withdraw by noon the next day, and that one candidate’s house was vandalised. The Thursday Times could not independently verify the allegations.
The party said it reported the incidents to the local police station and the sub-divisional police officer, and emailed the State Election Commission and the district election officer seeking security for its candidates. It said no police officer had visited the candidates’ homes by Wednesday morning.
Former MLA Anjan Das, a senior CPI(M) leader, alleged that the BJP had engineered the intimidation because the Left was on course to win all 15 wards in Ambassa, and claimed that no election in Tripura had been fair since 2018.
A woman leader of the party said the candidates had withdrawn to protect their supporters. “If I protest, ten others behind me will suffer for it,” she said.
A three-way fight
Chief Minister Manik Saha has said he expects the BJP-led alliance to sweep the civic polls.
The remaining seats are set for a three-way contest between the BJP-led NDA, the CPI(M), and the Congress, after seat-adjustment talks between the two opposition parties failed. The BJP ended 25 years of Left Front rule in Tripura in 2018 and was re-elected in 2023.
