Tripura polls: JP Nadda to launch election campaign on Friday

New Delhi [India], February 2 (ANI): Bharatiya Janata Party national president JP Nadda is scheduled to launch the party’s poll campaign in Tripura on Friday, in the wake of the upcoming Assembly elections in the state.

According to the top BJP sources, Nadda will kickstart the election campaign by launching a Vijay Sankalp Yatra from Amarpur tomorrow. He is also slated to conduct two public rallies in the state on February 3. Later, Nadda will also hold a meeting of the top leaders in the state to fine-tune the party’s strategy for the upcoming elections.

Apart from this, 35 other rallies would also be taken out across the state, led by both the Central and State level ministers. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and Union Minister Smriti Irani would also participate in the rallies tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the BJP is likely to release its election manifesto for Tripura in the next week.

BJP posted a stunning victory in Tripura in the 2018 Assembly elections, a Left bastion with Manik Sarkar being its Chief Minister for over two decades. After its poll victory, BJP appointed Biplab Deb as Tripura Chief Minister and in May 2022 appointed Manik Saha for the role. The party is preparing itself to register another win in Tripura and has struck an alliance with its former ally Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) which has fielded its candidates at five assembly seats.

For the elections at 60 Assembly seats in the northeastern state, which are slated to be held on February 17, the BJP has fielded 55 candidates. Former CM Manik Sarkar, hailing from the Communist Party of India (Marxist), would also contest the upcoming Assembly polls to the state. According to party officials, several other BJP leaders will also campaign in the north eastern state.

Earlier on January 27, BJP held a CEC meeting in the national capital to finalize the names of the candidates for the upcoming Tripura Assembly elections.
After the meeting, BJP announced its first list of 48 candidates for the Tripura Assembly polls, fielding Union Minister Pratima Bhoumik from Dhanpur. Chief Minister Manik Saha will contest the upcoming state assembly polls from the Town Bordowali constituency.

For the first time, 11 women candidates have been given tickets in the state assembly election. Tripura is slated to go to Assembly polls on February 16. Votes will be counted on March 2 along with Nagaland and Meghalaya.

Meanwhile, the central government in its Budget presentation on Wednesday announced the launch of a Rs15,000 crore development action plan to improve the socioeconomic conditions of the particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs) over the next three years, and increased the budgetary allocation for the tribal affairs ministry to Rs 12,414.95 crore.