Newly elected two BJP MLAs Tafajjal Hossain of Boxanagar assembly constituency and Bindu Debnath from Dhanpur seat on Tuesday took oath as MLA of the Tripura legislative assembly in the floor of the state assembly.

They were sworn in by Speaker Biswabandhu Sen at a ceremony on the assembly premises and both MLAs took oath in Bengali in presence of Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha, other cabinet ministers and MLAs.

Speaking in the swearing in ceremony Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha mentioned the situation for by-polls and BJP contested the elections and secured massive victory and now the strength of BJP-IPFT government stands at 34 MLAs, out of 60 assembly constituencies in Tripura. While, he ruled out any reshuffle in the state cabinet and said that when reshuffle takes place, then the media will be informed.

It may be recalled here that 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 margin 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 in the by-poll results declared on September 8th even as the two assembly constituencies were once strongholds of CPI(M).

The 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.

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.