A ‘greenhorn’ CM vs a seasoned MLA in Town Bardowali contest

Manik Saha, who won his first Assembly election in the bypoll that followed his naming as CM by BJP, has come into his own. But will it be enough against 3-time MLA Ashish Saha of Congress?

Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha meets with a voter during election campaigning. (Express photo by Debraj Deb)

5 min readAgartalaFeb 16, 2023 06:43 AM IST First published on: Feb 15, 2023 at 12:24 PM IST

AS TRIPURA votes Thursday, one of the contests on which a lot rests will be that for the Town Bardowali seat, located right outside capital city Agartala, featuring its sitting MLA and incumbent Chief Minister Manik Saha and the Congress’s Ashish Kumar Saha.

Manik Saha, whose selection as CM last year by the BJP in a surprise move, after getting Biplab Kumar Deb to step down, won the seat in a bypoll last year. It was his first-ever Assembly election win, making him a virtual greenhorn despite being the CM.

Ashish Saha, a previous MLA from the seat, on the other hand, is an old hand. He was a long-time Congress leader, and the party’s state working president, before switching sides to the Trinamool Congress. Within the space of a year though, in 2017 – as the last Assembly elections approached – he moved to the BJP with five MLAs. In the 2018 Assembly elections, Ashish Saha won from Town Bardowali on a BJP ticket.

It was his resignation from the seat when he returned last year to the Congress that resulted in the bypoll, which Manik Saha won, defeating Ashish Saha.

The CM carried his image of a “gentleman politician”, a practising doctor who continues to lend his expertise during difficult dental surgeries, who has tried to tone down hooliganism, during the campaign – an image that works well in the Town Bardowali constituency spread across Agartala’s posh residential Ramnagar area and its outskirts.

Congress leader Ashish Kumar Saha (Express Photo by Debraj Deb)

Speaking to The Indian Express as he went door-to-door during the campaign, the 69-year-old said he got “tremendous response”, and that people were not fooled by the Left Front-Congress’s charges of breakdown of law and order and electoral malpractices.

“Before 2018, elections were held under the threat of severe violence. Here I am asking everyone to come out of their homes in the morning on poll day and cast their mandate fearlessly. My party and I want people to cast votes without fear or favour,” he said, adding that the Tripura results would set the course for the BJP’s victory in 2024.

If he won, Manik Saha told the people, he would start a host of schemes for development specific to Tripura, apart from the benefits coming to the state from central flagship schemes and projects.

Since his short stint in power starting March last year, Manik Saha has shown signs of shedding the reticence earlier associated with him. He has also come into his own vis-a-vis former CM Biplab Deb, long seen as his patron. Manik Saha had, in fact, joined the BJP following Deb’s return to Tripura after a gap of almost two decades of working under the tutelage of veteran RSS ideologues like Govindacharya in Delhi.

During the 2018 Assembly elections, Manik Saha was in-charge of the BJP’s Panna Pramukhs, booth management committees and a membership drive.

If that hands-on electoral experience should help Manik Saha now, Ashish Saha, the three-time MLA from Town Bardowali, remains a formidable opponent.

While Ashish Saha lost the bypoll last year, he was seen as having given the CM a walkover, focusing his energies instead on ensuring the victory of long-time colleague and friend Sudip Roy Barman from the bypoll in the neighbouring Agartala constituency. During his campaign this time, he told voters that the BJP victory in last year’s bypoll was due to hooliganism and “fake votes”.

CM Dr. Manik Saha seen during election canvassing. (Express photo by Debraj Deb)

Intent on wrestling his seat back, Ashish Saha is also counting on the support of the Left parties as bonus. “We have campaigned in favour of Left-supported Congress candidates, and vice-a-versa across the state… I am confident there is a wave in Town Bardowali, and we will win,” he told The Indian Express.

The numbers too give Ashish Saha hope. While Manik Saha got 51.63% of the votes in the bypoll – which are usually a cakewalk for a ruling party — Ashish Saha as the Congress candidate got 33.29%, and the Left another 10% or so.

This time, the TIPRA Motha has not put up a candidate at Town Bardowali; a significant move given the BJP’s claims of an understanding between the party and Left-Congress combine.

The other party in the contest, the Trinamool Congress, got a meagre 2.96% votes in the bypolls last year.

In 2018, when Ashish Saha fought as a BJP candidate, his victory was massive, getting 61.95% of the votes. The Left candidate had got 33.44% of the votes, and the Congress 3.32%.