1 week ago
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GUWAHATI
The outcome of the April 19 election to the Tripura West Lok Sabha constituency will be more than a battle of ballots for the two top contenders — BJP candidate Biplab Kumar Deb and Congress nominee Asish Kumar Saha.
A victory for Mr. Deb would be a redemption of sorts. He was seldom in the public space in Tripura after the BJP made him step down as the Chief Minister in May 2022 but rehabilitated him as a Rajya Sabha member.
A win for Mr. Saha, his party colleagues say, would be poetic justice as he quit as a BJP legislator in February 2022 after falling out with Mr. Deb. Mr. Saha, one of three MLAs who left the BJP following differences with Mr. Deb, eventually became the Tripura Congress unit president.
Groomed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh for assignments across the country, Mr. Deb returned to Tripura in 2015 and was made the BJP’s State unit president the following year. He became the Chief Minister in 2018 after guiding the BJP to victory and ending 25 years of Left Front rule.
Mr. Saha won the 2013 Assembly polls on a Congress ticket and shifted to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in 2016 and then to the BJP in 2017. He won the 2018 Assembly election as a BJP candidate and returned to Congress four years later.
The attacks on each other during the campaign underlined the strained relationship between the two.
“Some Congress leaders defected to the TMC over the Congress-Left Front alliance in West Bengal. They quit the TMC and joined BJP only to rejoin Congress, which is an ally of the CPI(Marxist) that loves China more than India and abhors Indian culture,” Mr. Deb said, referring to Mr. Saha.
Constituents of the Indian National Developmental, Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), the Congress and the CPI(M) divided the two Lok Sabha seats in the State. While Congress fielded Mr. Saha from the Tripura West seat, the CPI(M) fielded Rajendra Reang from the Tripura East constituency.
Mr. Saha has also not held back. “The BJP should clarify why it wants someone who failed to run the Tripura government elected to the Lok Sabha,” he said at one of the Congress’ last campaigns.
The Congress also ridiculed the BJP for dropping incumbent Tripura West MP and Union Minister Pratima Bhowmik and opting for Mr. Deb. Ms. Bhowmik, however, said the party was above personal goals or ambitions.
The BJP also did not field its incumbent MP from the Tripura East constituency, Rebati Tripura. It has, instead, bet on Kriti Devi Debbarman, the younger daughter of Tripura’s last king, Kirit Bikram Kishore Manikya Debbarman.
Like Mr. Deb, she has been away from Tripura for most of her life and is the wife of Yogeshwar Raj Singh, a member of Chhattisgarh’s Kawardha royal family. The absence, however, has not reduced her love for her State and constituency, for which she would pursue sustainable development, she said.
Her main rival is Mr. Reang of the CPI(M).
Nine candidates each are contesting the Tripura East and Tripura West seats.
