Tripura panchayat bypolls: Congress to contest all seats, says party has started process to select candidates

Agartala: The opposition Congress Monday announced that it would contest all the seats of the by-elections of the three-tier panchayat, which fell vacant due to mass scale resignation of the office bearers after the BJP-Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT) came to power. The state election commission has fixed by-elections to panchayat seats on coming 30 September. Polls would be held in 3,207 seats in gram panchayats, 161 seats in panchayat samities and 18 seats in zila parishads. [caption id=“attachment_5095561” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AFP[/caption] President of the Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC), Birajit Sinha said, “To maintain law and order in the state is the responsibility of the state government. If healthy democratic atmosphere does not prevail during the election, the Congress would not keep mum and appropriate actions would be initiated.” He said the process for selection of candidates for the by-elections in the block level has already started. “Besides, we have also declared the names of in-charges of Congress in all the blocks of the state. We have also geared up our party machinery for the 30 September by-elections,” Sinha told reporters. Earlier on 20 August state party secretary of CPM Bijan Dhar said, “We are well aware that the state election department has taken initiative to hold the by-elections for the vacant posts in the three tier Panchayat bodies. We demand before conducting the by-polls the concerned authority must ensure proper democratic atmosphere in the state, so that opposition parties could participate in the elections without fear.” He also said due to political pressure of ruling BJP activists a huge number of people representatives had resigned after BJP-IPFT government was formed in Tripura in March 2017. “Abnormal vacancies were created due to resignations under duress,” Dhar told reporters. Ashoke Sinha, BJP spokesperson said, “CPM allegation of forced resignation is baseless. CPM lost organizational support after defeat in the state assembly elections that is why people had resigned. Nobody exercised any force on them. I am confident that our party would make good results in the by-elections.” In a separate event, Birajit Sinha said, “Congress would submit a memorandum to the Tripura Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki on 20 September alleging that Rafale aircraft deal was a scam of the ruling BJP.” “On 20 September we would organize a huge rally from Congress Bhavan in Agartala, which would move in different parts of the town and submit a memorandum to the governor as part of our nationwide protest. We named this campaign Bharat Bachao Rafael Ghotala,” he said. All India youth congress president Keshav Chand Jadav and Vice President Srinibah BV will also join the rally.