Top leaders of the Tripura BJP rushed to New Delhi after the Party high command summoned them for urgent consultations on the upcoming State Assembly elections. Chief Minister Manik Saha, former Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, Union Minister of State Pratima Bhoumik, Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Debbarman and a couple of senior leaders, are now camping at the national capital.
Sources said the State leaders would meet the Central leaders separately and in a group. Dr. Saha on Sunday, met the national general secretary B.L. Santhosh, at the latter’s office.
The Assembly elections in Tripura are expected to take place in early February next year. The Saffron Party is reportedly, concerned over twenty tribal reserved seats in the 60-member Assembly.
The BJP is expected to contest the elections in most of the seats allotting a few to its coalition partner, the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT), as the regional party had been extensively crippled owing to the massive surge of Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance (TIPRA) led by Pradyot Kishore Debbarman. The IPFT had won eight seats in the 2018 elections, but its three MLAs resigned from the Assembly in the past one and half year and joined the TIPRA, which made a dent in the strength of its ‘Greater Tipraland’ demand.
On the other hand, four BJP MLAs of the current Assembly including former Health Minister Sudip Roy Barman resigned from the Party, as a result of internal bickering. The BJP however, captured two of the seats in the ensuing bypolls.
The BJP earlier, appointed Mahendra Singh as the election observer and ST Morcha national President Samir Oraon as the election co-observer. The Party also made former Union Minister Mahendra Sharma the State `Pravari’ (in-charge).
They are expected to join the meetings with the State leaders in New Delhi. The meetings also attained importance as taking place ahead of the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Tripura on December 18, to address a public rally here.
