Tripura by-polls: BJP candidates win 2 assembly seats with massive margins

As accepted, the ruling BJP won both Dhanpur and Boxanagar assembly constituencies in the crucial by-elections by defeating its CPI (M) rival candidates with a massive margins of votes and created history in Tripura as for the first time a minority Muslim candidate won as a BJP nominee.

The BJP wrested the Boxanagar seat from the CPI(M) and retained the Dhanpur seat even as the two assembly constituencies were once strongholds of CPI(M).

The counting of polled votes begins on Friday morning 8 AM amidst tight security in two counting centres at the Sonamura Girls’ Higher Secondary school under Sepahijala district, which have been completed after six rounds of calculations in both the Boxanagar and Dhanpur seats.

Election officials said that BJP candidate Tafajjal Hossain, with 34,146 votes, won in Boxanagar by a margin of 30,237 votes defeating his CPI (M) opponent Mizan Hossain, who bagged 3,909 votes only.

Tafajjal Hossain secured 87.97% of total polled votes, while his nearest rival CPI (M) candidate Mizan Hossain got 10.07% of votes.

The BJP nominee Bindu Debnath (30,017 votes) won the Dhanpur constituency with 70.35% of votes, thrashing his CPI(M) challenger Kaushik Chanda by a margin of 18871 votes. Chanda secured 11, 146 votes with 26.12% of total votes.

 After the completion of counting of postal ballots, counting of votes stored in the EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) have been taken up.

The by-polls were held on Tuesday (September 5th), and the voter turnout stood at 86.56 per cent, with 93,495 eligible voters casting their ballots.

The 51-years-old Muslim leader Taffajal Hossain, first Muslim nominee elected to Tripura assembly as BJP candidate, unsuccessfully contested the February 16, 2023 assembly polls from the same Muslim-dominated Boxanagar constituency. He lost to CPM’s Samsul Haque, who died on July 19, 2023 following a cardiac attack necessitating the by-polls, by a margin of 4631 votes.

The by-election to the Dhanpur seat was necessitated after Union Minister Pratima Bhoumik resigned from the assembly, days after she was elected from the seat as a BJP candidate in the February assembly elections.

The Congress and the Tipra-Motha, the other two main opposition parties in the state, had earlier announced not to field candidates in the two seats to prevent division of vote share. The leaders of Motha  , however, two days before the by-elections, had declared not to support the CPI(M) or the BJP in the by-elections, leaving the choice to the voters and party workers. Congress leaders, led by state party President Ashish Kumar Saha campaigned for the CPI(M) candidates.

Alleging large-scale intimidation, rigging and irregularities by members and workers of the state's ruling BJP on the polling day and the Election Commission’s "inactiveness" to deal with the “terror and misdeeds”, the CPI (M)-led Left Front has boycotted the counting.

Now, with this victory in the two assembly seats, the BJP’s tally increased to 33 in the 60-member assembly while CPI (M)’s strength went down from 11 to 10. In the February 16 assembly polls, the ruling BJP won 32 seats while its ally Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) secured one.

On the other hand the tribal based Tipra-Motha became the second single largest party after BJP securing 13 seats while CPI (M) managed 11 seats and the Congress three seats.

Many top BJP leaders and Central Ministers including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP President JP Nadda and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma congratulated the party candidates for their success.