AGARTALA: The last-minute preparations were underway on Wednesday for the politically crucial bye-elections in four Assembly constituencies in Tripura, scheduled to be held on Thursday. The votes will be counted on June 26.
Central and state security forces were deployed ahead of the vital bye-elections being termed as the 'semi-final' before the 60-member Tripura Assembly's general elections which are around eight months away.
As the BJP, CPI-M-led Left Front, Congress and the Trinamool Congress and other local parties put up their candidates, the bye-polls would be multi-cornered.
Prohibitory orders under Section 144 CrPc have been promulgated in the four Assembly constituencies -- Agartala, Town Bordowali, Surma and Jubarajnagar - in three districts -- West Tripura, North Tripura and Dhalai.
In all, 1,89,032 voters would decide the political fortune of 22 candidates of the BJP, CPI-M-led Left Front, Congress and the Trinamool Congress, and other local parties.
The over-a-month-long hectic poll campaign for the four Assembly seats in Tripura ended on Tuesday, while a tense situation prevailed in some areas of these poll-bound constituencies.
The campaign was marred by violent incidents. Former BJP minister Sudip Roy Barman, who is now contesting from the Agartala constituency on a Congress ticket, was injured when "BJP activists" allegedly attacked him late on Sunday night. Barman, a five-time MLA from the politically crucial Agartala constituency, is now under treatment at a private hospital in Agartala.
The focus of the bye-elections was on the Town Bordowali Assembly constituency, where 69-year-old Congress-turned-BJP leader and Chief Minister Manik Saha is contesting against five other candidates.
Saha, the State party president and a Rajya Sabha member who assumed office on May 15, a day after Biplab Kumar Deb's resignation from the top post, is contesting the elections for the first time.
To fulfil the constitutional bindings, he has to become a member of the Assembly within six months. The bye-polls were necessitated after the resignation of three BJP MLAs and the death of CPI-M legislator Ramendra Chandra Debnath.
Amid open resentment among a section of BJP legislators against the then Chief Minister Deb, three MLAs -- Sudip Roy Barman (Agartala), Ashish Kumar Saha (Town Bordowali) and Ashis Das (Surma) -- quit the BJP and the Assembly. (IANS)
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