Decided to strengthen ‘loopholes’, plans for civic polls: Tripura CM after BJP meet

TRipura chief government minister Manik Saha chaired meetings on sabbatum to key out “loopholes” and train for upcoming municipal and Nagar panchayet elections after the TIPRA Motha Party swept the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) elections on Friday, sharply reducing ally Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) presence to four seats from eight in the previous tribal council polls.“ While reviewing, it has come out that the way we contested....our decision was right. And we shall take our party forward in the indigenous-dominated areas. In the review meeting, it was also decided to strengthen the identified loopholes in future”, CM said after the meeting.Senior party leaders including state BJP president and Rajya Sabha lawmaker Rajib Bhattacharjee, finance minister Pranajit Singha Roy, industries and commerce minister Shantana Chakma, TTAADC poll candidates and others attended the meeting at the BJP headquarters.Polling for the 28-seat TTAADC was held on April 12 and recorded a voter turnout of more than 83%. Despite being allies in the state, the BJP and TIPRA Motha contested against each other in the council elections. The BJP’s other ally IPFT, along with CPI(M) and Congress, also fought independently.CM Saha said that the BJP, which contested the poll independently, increased its vote share by nearly eight percent compared to the previous election.“In this state, for the first time, the Bharatiya Janata Party contested solo in the ADC elections, where our vote share rose by nearly 8% compared to before, reaching 27.44%, and we emerged victorious in 4 seats,” Saha wrote on his X.“We are deeply grateful for this support from a large section of the populace, who repelled fierce attacks toward us. Today, at the state BJP office, an important meeting was held in the presence of our party’s winning and defeated candidates. In the meeting, we felicitated the winning candidates and called upon them to play an important role in the ADC as the voice of ordinary people in the days ahead”, CM wrote on his X, formerly Twitter.Meanwhile, in a separate meeting with party workers at his home turf, Bardowali Mandal, on Friday, CM Saha urged them to work together.“The meeting was about the strategy to be followed in future. We have municipal and nagar panchayat polls ahead. The strategy that needs to be followed were discussed here”, CM said.The BJP recorded a landslide victory in the Tripura civic polls held in 14 urban bodies, including Agartala Municipal Corporation, in 2021.The civic polls were conducted for 222 seats out of a total of 334 seats on November 25, recording an 81.54% turnout. Out of 222 seats, the BJP won 217. It had already secured the remaining 112 seats uncontested before polling.The Trinamool Congress secured the second-highest votes by winning a single seat at Ambassa Nagar Panchayat, while another seat in the panchayat was won by royal scion Pradyot Kishore Debbarma’s party, TIPRA Motha.The CPI(M) won three seats in three urban bodies, including Ambassa and Kailasahar Municipal Councils and Panisagar Nagar Panchayat.