Tripura Polls: Congress Releases List of 17 Candidates

The Congress on Saturday announced a list of 17 candidates for the upcoming Tripura assembly polls. Agartala MLA Sudip Roy Barman, who is a former BJP minister, will contest for the same seat in the upcoming polls.

The grand old party has also released the list of star campaigners ahead of the Tripura polls. Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Priyanka Gandhi, Bhupesh Baghel, Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot and others feature in the list.

The CPI(M)-led Left Front had announced the names of candidates for 47 of the 60 Assembly seats earlier this week.

Out of the 47 seats, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) will contest for 43 seats while other Left partners – CPI, RSP, Forward Bloc – will field one candidate each. The Left Front has fielded 24 new faces in the electoral fray.

The Congress-CPI(M) alliance is a tectonic shift in the state's political landscape, as the Congress was the main opposition to the Left Front, which ruled Tripura for 25 years before being routed by the BJP in 2018.

Of the 60 seats on offer, the BJP had won 35, CPI(M) bagged 16, Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) won eight while the Congress drew a nil in 2018.

The BJP top brass was in talks with TIPRA, a regional party founded by former Congress leader and royal scion Pradyot Deb Barman, for a pre-poll alliance, which has now been ruled out.

The Tripura Assembly polls are slated to be held on February 16 and counting of votes will take place on March 2.

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