Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha chaired meetings on Saturday to identify “loopholes” and prepare for the upcoming municipal and nagar panchayat polls after the Tipra Mutha Party swept the Tripura Tribal Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) elections on Friday, sharply reducing the presence of ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to four seats from eight in the previous tribal council elections.
“During the review, it was found that the way we objected…. our decision was correct. We will take our party forward in the indigenous-dominated areas. In the review meeting, it was also decided to strengthen the loopholes identified in the future,” the CM said after the meeting.
Senior party leaders, including BJP state president and Rajya Sabha MP Rajib Bhattacharjee, Finance Minister Pranajit Singha Roy, Industries and Commerce Minister Shanthana Chakma, TTAADC election candidates and others, attended the meeting at the BJP headquarters.
Polling for the 28-seat TTAADC was held on April 12 and voter turnout was recorded at over 83%. Despite being allies in the state, the BJP and Tipra Mutha contested against each other in the Assembly elections. The BJP’s other ally IPFT, along with CPI(M) and Congress, also fought independently.
CM Saha said that the BJP, which fought the elections independently, increased its vote share by about eight per cent compared to the previous elections.
Saha wrote on his page
“We are extremely grateful for this support from a large section of the population, who repelled the fierce attacks against us. Today, at the state BJP office, an important meeting was held in the presence of the winning and defeated candidates of our party. In the meeting, we congratulated the winning candidates and called on them to play an important role in the ADC as the voice of the common people in the coming days,” the CM wrote on his X account, formerly known as Twitter.
Meanwhile, in a separate meeting with party workers at his residence, Bardwali Mandal, on Friday, CM Saha urged them to work together.
“The meeting was about the strategy to be followed in the future. We have municipal and nagar panchayat elections coming up. The strategy to be followed was discussed here,” the CM said.
The BJP registered a landslide victory in the Tripura civic polls held in 14 urban bodies, including Agartala Municipal Corporation, in 2021.
Civic polls were conducted on 222 seats out of a total of 334 seats on November 25, recording a turnout of 81.54%. Of the 222 seats, the BJP won 217 seats. He had already won the remaining 112 seats by acclamation before the polls.
The Trinamool Congress received the second highest votes by winning one seat in the Ambasa Nagar panchayat, while royal scion Pradyut Kishor Debbarma’s party TIPRA Mutha won another seat in the panchayat.
The Communist Party of India (Maoist) won three seats in three urban bodies, including the Ambasa, Kailasahar and Banisagar Nagar panchayats.
