Agartala: Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha said that he has not been made the Chief Minister by the central leaders for three months or seven months, and he will be in the leading position in the Assembly elections in early next year. The statement of Saha, who assumed office on May 15, a day after Biplab Kumar Deb`s resignation from the top post, is very significant as the elections to the Tripura Assembly are expected to be held around eight months from now (February 2023). The 69-year-old Congress-turned-BJP leader, who is contesting from the Town Bordowali Assembly constituency against five other candidates, is also the state party President and a Rajya Sabha member. 


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Campaigning for the June 23 bypolls to four Assembly seats, IANS quoted Saha as saying in a party meeting as, "Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President J.P. Nadda have extended their trust in me. This is not the right platform to disclose everything." Saha is contesting the elections for the first time to become a member of the Assembly within six months.


The bypolls were necessitated after the resignation of three BJP MLAs and the death of CPI-M legislator Ramendra Chandra Debnath. Amid resentment by a section of BJP legislators against then CM Deb, three MLAs -- Sudip Roy Barman, Ashis Kumar Saha and Ashis Das -- had quit the BJP and the Assembly.


Roy Barman, also a former BJP minister, and Saha joined the Congress in February this year while Das joined the Trinamool last year. Das also resigned from the Trinamool last month. Roy Barman and Saha this time are contesting from Agartala and Town Bordowali Assembly constituencies, respectively, on Congress tickets.


Meanwhile, former Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb reportedly held a meeting with party chief JP Nadda in New Delhi on Saturday and also met with Kailash Vijayvargiya, national general secretary of the BJP, and the party`s Tripura in-charge Vinod Sonkar in Agartala on Monday.  Deb tweeted, "In all these meetings, we have discussed the strategies about the byelections." 


The Left parties, the Congress, and the Trinamool Congress also undertook campaigns in all the four assembly seats -- Town Bordowali, Agartala, Jubarajnagar and Surma (SC). Trinamool Congress national General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee would be on a Tripura visit to spearhead the campaign as his party has put up candidates in all the four seats through a road-show and would address an election meeting as well.


Trinamool has submitted a series of complaints to the Election Commission about the political violence ahead of the bypolls.


"The BJP removing a chief minister ahead of elections shows that the issues raised by us in the past few months are valid. The people of Tripura now need a change of government and not just CMs. Those who think it is okay to increase the prices of essential commodities and fuel can vote for BJP. But those who want to remove BJP for its misgovernance should vote for Trinamool," IANS quoted Ghosh as saying.


(With IANS Inputs)