Chief Minister Manik Saha won the bypoll to the crucial Town Bardowali seat with 6,104 votes.
Agartala:
The ruling BJP won three assembly seats and the Congress won one in the high-stakes by-elections in Tripura on Sunday, officials said.
Chief Minister Manik Saha won the bypoll to the crucial Town Bardowali seat with 6,104 votes. He received 17,181 votes, which is 51.63 percent of the total vote, according to the election commission.
His closest congressional rival Asish Kumar Saha took 11,077 votes or 33.29 percent of the total vote.
Congressional candidate Sudip Roy Barman won the Agartala seat by a margin of 3,163 votes. He obtained 17,241 votes, which is 43.46 percent of the total number of votes polled.
His closest rival Ashok Sinha of the BJP received 14,268 votes (35.57 percent).
With this victory, Roy Barman became the only Congressional MLA in the assembly following the party’s complete defeat in the 2018 parliamentary election.
The CPI(M) lost its citadel of Jubarajnagar to the BJP by a margin of 4,572 votes. BJP candidate Malina Debnath received 18,769 votes (51.83 percent), while Shailendra Chandra Nath of CPI(M) received 14,197 votes (39.2 percent).
In Surma, BJP’s Swapna Das won by a margin of 4,583 votes, for a total of 16,677 votes (42.34 percent). Her closest rival Baburam Satnami of TIPRA Motha received 12,094 votes (30.7 percent).
The prime minister thanked the people of the state for voting for the BJP and said the results reflect an understanding between the CPI(M) and Congress.
“The people who voted for us, I thank them. This is the victory of the BJP workers. In the city of Bardowali, I expected the margin to be slightly more. However, the results prove the understanding between the CPI(M) and Congress. We will work accordingly in the future, but people have not understood this concept in a good way,” he told reporters.
“We’ve been seeing post-poll violence in the state for years, so we’ve been urging people to stay away from something like that. People’s trust is the most important factor, and we need to make sure they don’t have any problems. I would also ask the opposition parties to maintain the peace,” he added.
Seeking a breakthrough in the northeastern state, the TMC performed poorly, with its candidates losing deposits in all seats.
The counting for the midterm elections, which was held on June 23, started at 8 a.m.
The by-elections for the Agartala and Town Bardowali seats were held when incumbent BJP MLAs Ashish Kumar Saha and Sudip Roy Barman resigned from the assembly before joining Congress in February.
The bypoll to Jubarajnagar was necessary as CPI(M) MLA Ramendra Chandra Debnath died, while in Surma BJP MLA Asish Das rebelled against his party and was subsequently disqualified.
After the bypolls, the ruling BJP has 36 MLAs in the 60-seat assembly, its ally IPFT has eight MLAs, the opposition CPI(M)-led Left Front has 15 MLAs and Congress has one legislator.
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