Ratan Lal Nath, second in command in the BJP-led Tripura government after Chief Minister Manik Saha, said that everyone knows very well that Congress and CPI(M) are sinking ship and none would support them.
“Now, a large number of supporters of Congress, CPI(M) and other parties have been every day joining the BJP and Tipra Motha Party (TMP) discarding the sinking ship. I believe our candidates in both Lok Sabha seats would win with a record vote margin,” he told the media after opening a joint election party office at Lefunga, a tribal-dominated area at Mohanpur in West Tripura District.
Ratan Lal Nath, who joined the BJP in 2017, a year before the party came to power in Tripura for the first time after defeating the Left parties, alleged that CPI(M) Tripura state Secretary Jitendra Chaudhury, who recently was made leader of the opposition, would not continue to hold the post after the Lok Sabha polls.
He also expressed his doubt whether the three Congress MLAs – Sudip Roy Barman, Birajit Sinha and Gopal Roy — would remain in the party after the parliamentary poll.
Nath, however, refused to spell out whether the three Congress legislators would join the BJP or not.
“They (CPI(M)-Congress) want division and we (BJP-TMP-IPFT) want thansa (tribal language meaning unity). We all know who did the 1980s ethnic riot. So, no one wants the division among different communities of people in Tripura,” he said.
“I believe that ‘Ek Tripura, Shrestha Tripura’ (one Tripura, best Tripura), would happen in future and this time, NDA would win 400 seats,” he said.
The Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) is the old ally of the BJP-led government in Tripura.
The two Lok Sabha seats — Tripura West and East Tripura – parliamentary constituencies would go for polls on April 19 and 26 respectively.
The CPI(M) and the Congress won the state’s two Lok Sabha seats several times since 1952, when the first parliamentary elections were held.
The BJP won both the Lok Sabha seats for the first time in 2019, with Union Minister Pratima Bhoumik and teacher-turned-politician Rebati Tripura emerging triumphant from Tripura West and Tripura East, respectively.
However, both Pratima Bhoumik and Rebati Tripura have been dropped this time, as the party has fielded Kriti Singh Debbarma and former Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb from Tripura East and Tripura West seats, respectively.