Tripura polls: Battle lines drawn after withdrawals
The Hindu
Left Front and Congress settle their dispute over four seats while the IPFT is contesting one seat more than the five allotted by ally BJP
The battle lines for Tripura’s Mandate 2023 have been drawn with 32 out of a total of 291 candidates withdrawing from the fray on Thursday, the last day for exiting the electoral contest.
Those who withdrew included three candidates of the Congress to settle a seat-sharing dispute with the Left Front, headed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
But the differences between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the ally Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) over one seat, remained unresolved.
“A total of 310 candidates had filed their nominations but the papers of 19 were rejected. Of the 291 valid names, 32 were withdrawn leaving 259 in the fray,” the State’s Chief Electoral Officer, Kiran Dinkarrao Gitte said.
A total of 297 candidates, 24 of them women, contested the 2018 polls. The number of women candidates this time was 31.
The Left Front-Congress was saved the blues after three Congress candidates withdrew their nominations. The two parties had agreed to split the number of seats 47-13, but eyebrows were raised when the Congress named 17 candidates and filed nominations for three seats— Barjala, Badharghat and Radhakishorepur— beyond the number allotted to it.