Bye polls to the lone Rajya Sabha seat will be held on Thursday as announced by the Election Commission. There are two contenders for the Rajya Sabha membership – BJP’s candidate and former chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb and opposition CPM’s candidate also a former Left Front minister Bhanulal Saha.
While Deb is contesting for the first time in the Rajya Sabha , Saha earlier was also in the fray against BJP’s Dr Manik Saha in the previous elections.
As it happened with Dr Saha—a smooth sail due to decisive strength in the assembly, this time also Deb is going to make it to the Upper house of the Parliament without any hassle.
BJP has 36 MLAs and its ally IPFT has seven MLAs. On the other side, the strength of the Opposition Left Front is 15 while Congress has one MLA in the 60-member Tripura Legislative Assembly. The simple numerical strength of the ruling BJP-IPFT combine ensures Deb’s victory in the bye polls as there is also little chance of any cross voting. Out of total 60 there are now 59 MLAs after disqualification of IPFT MLA Brishaketu Debbarma.
The BJP leadership on Friday held a high level meeting with Chief Minister Dr in the chair. The meeting was also attended by newly-appointed party’s Tripura prabhari Dr. Mahesh Sharma and North East co-ordinator Sambit Patra.
The meeting discussed in details about the bye-polls strategies and other organizational matters.
Dr Sharma and Sambit Patra arrived here on Friday. They are expected to attend a series of meetings keeping in mind the next assembly elections and also discuss matters relating to the TIPRA Motha’s emergence.
