Left, Congress to fight jointly in Tripura, CPI-M announces Tripura East candidate

The CPI-M-led Left Front on Sunday announced its candidate for the Tripura East Lok Sabha seat (ST) and decided to support the Congress in the Tripura West seat.

After separate meetings of the CPI-M’s state committee and of the Left Front, Left Front convener Narayan Kar said that former CPI-M MLA Rajendra Reang would be the Left’s nominee for the Tripura East Lok Sabha seat, which is reserved for the tribals.

He said that former CPI-M MLA Ratan Das, who is also the Secretary of the CPI-M West District committee, would be fielded in the Ramnagar Assembly seat where by-elections would be held on April 19.

The Assembly seat had fallen vacant due to the death of sitting BJP MLA Surajit Datta on December 28.

The Left leader, addressing the media, said that the Left Front, as a part of the INDIA bloc, decided to fight the poll battle together with partners of the grouping to defeat the BJP.

CPI-M state Secretary Jitendra Chaudhury said that the Left parties would soon hold meetings with the Congress and other INDIA bloc partners to chalk out the campaign and other strategies.

Congress on March 8 nominated its state party President Ashish Kumar Saha from the Tripura West Lok Sabha seat.

The CPI-M has won both the seats many times since 1952 while the Congress has also won a few times.

The BJP won both seats for the first time in 2019, with Union Minister of State for Social Justice Pratima Bhoumik (Tripura West) and teacher-turned-politician Rebati Tripura (Tripura East) emerging triumphant. However, both have been dropped this time and ‘Maharani’ Kriti Singh Debbarma and former Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb were named for the Tripura East Lok Sabha and Tripura West seats, respectively.

A resident of Chhattisgarh, Debbarma, a member of the erstwhile royal dynasty, is the elder sister of Tipra Motha Party (TMP) supremo and royal scion Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barman.

Polling for the West Tripura parliamentary seat will be held on April 19, in the first of the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections, while the Tripura East (ST) constituency will go to the polls in the second phase on April 26.