Tripura Election 2023: Results today, 5 key battles to watch out for

While the BJP is tipped to retain power by the exit polls, the Left-Congress alliance and the TIPRA have rejected them, expressing hope that they would put up a good showing.

As the counting of votes gets underway, here are five key seats in the state to watch out for.

Town Bardowali

The BJP’s face in the polls, Chief Minister Manik Saha, is contesting from the Town Bardowali constituency located on the outskirts of Agartala city. Saha is locked in a keen contest with the Congress’s three-term MLA Ashish Kumar Saha.

A newcomer in electoral politics, Saha won his first-ever Assembly election in a bypoll last year, after the BJP leadership replaced Biplab Kumar Deb with him as the CM.

CM Saha had trounced Ashish by 6,104 votes in the Town Bardowali by-election last year, but the constituency is the latter’s home turf.

Ashish had won the Town Bardowali seat with a margin of over 11,000 votes in the 2018 polls, although he had then contested on the BJP ticket after he along with five other Congress MLAs had defected to the saffron party in 2017.

In this election, out of 47,125 voters in the constituency, 37,673 voters cast their votes, marking a turnout of 79.94 per cent. The overall voter turnout in the state however stood at over 90 per cent. The CM’s constituency registered the lowest voter turnout. Saha explained it by claiming that most voters in the city are educated, many of whom stay outside the state for professional reasons.

Last year’s bypoll saw the BJP garnering a vote share of 51.63 per cent as against the Congress’s 33.29. The Left had then polled 10.15 per cent votes. Given that the Congress and the Left are now allies, they are hoping to put up a tough fight against the CM.

Agartala

Contrary to CM Saha’s explanation, the Agartala constituency, most of which is located in the heart of the capital city, saw 84.13 per cent voter turnout, from where senior Congress leader and ex-minister Sudip Roy Barman, the six-term MLA, is taking on the BJP’s greenhorn candidate Papia Dutta.

Roy Barman had won the seat with a margin of 7,382 votes in the 2018 polls on the BJP’s ticket. He also became a minister in the Biplab Deb cabinet, but later fell out with the BJP and returned to the Congress.

He managed to retain the Agartala seat with a narrow margin in the last year’s bypoll, becoming the Congress’s lone MLA.

This time Roy Barman is contesting the election amid allegations that he used goons from Bangladesh in his campaign.

Dhanpur

The Dhanpur seat in Sepahijala district is witnessing a keen fight between Union minister Pratima Bhoumik and the CPI(M)’s 42-year-old candidate Kaushik Chanda, who is contesting the election for the first time. This used to be CPI(M) stalwart and four-time CM Manik Sarkar’s constituency, who stepped aside to make way for Chanda.

The BJP’s Pratima had contested from this seat against then CM Sarkar in the 1998 and the 2018 polls unsuccessfully. She had later contested from the West Tripura Lok Sabha seat in 2019 and won the election.

Sabroom

The CPI(M) state secretary, Jitendra Chaudhury, who is touted to be the CM candidate of the Left-Congress combine, is contesting from the Sabroom constituency in South Tripura.

Chaudhury, who had earlier served as a minister in several Sarkar cabinets, became a Lok Sabha MP in 2014. In this election he is pitted against the BJP’s incumbent MLA Shankar Roy, who had won with a margin of 2182 votes in the 2018 polls.

Kailashahar

The Kailashahar seat in Unakoti district is also likely to witness a fierce fight, where state Congress chief and ex-minister Birajit Sinha is pitted against former CPI(M) MLA Moboswor Ali, who switched to the BJP just ahead of the polls.

While he said he joined the BJP to work under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the point remains that he was dropped by the CPI(M) from the list of its candidates despite being the incumbent MLA as the Congress wanted the seat as per their seat-sharing arrangement.