Tripura was the first state to go to the polls this year. The voting took place on February 16. The Tripura assembly has 60 seats. The votes are being counted today, along with those of Meghalaya and Nagaland.
Tripura recorded a voter turnout of nearly 88 per cent in this year's assembly elections. In 2018, the turnout was 91.4 per cent. The northeastern state saw a three-cornered contest where the ruling BJP-IPFT alliance hoping to retain power while the CPM has joined hands with Congress to fight the elections. The Tipra Motha Party, formed by Pradyot Debbarma, a scion of Tripura's former royal family, is another major contestant in the assembly election.
The poll of exit polls suggested that the BJP could claim 32 seats in the Tripura assembly while the Left-Congress alliance and the Tipra Motha may grab 15 and 12 seats, respectively.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) was in power in Tripura for more than 30 years until BJP recorded a historic win in 2018. In the last assembly election, the BJP won 36 of the 60 seats despite having no presence in the state earlier. The CPM won 16 seats and the Congress, which was the main opposition party in the previous assembly, could not even win a single seat.
The BJP formed government in 2018 after forging an alliance with the regional Indigenous Progressive Front of Tripura (IPFT), which won eight seats.
This year, the Left Front fielded candidates for 47 of the 60 seats leaving 13 for the Congress. The BJP entered into a seat-sharing arrangement with the IPFT and the two parties contested 55 and 5 seats, respectively.
The key candidates include Chief Minister Manik Saha, who is the BJP nominee from the Town Bardowali constituency, and Union minister Pratima Bhowmik, who contested from Dhanpur on a BJP ticket. CPI(M) state secretary Jitendra Chadudhury was fielded from the Sabroom assembly seat.
Elections