‘We will be winning 44-45 seats in Tripura. We will form the government,’ Himanta Biswa Sarma told reporters in Tripura. File photo: Waseem Andrabi/Hindustan Times
Agartala: The BJP will form the government after winning around 45 seats in the 60-member Tripura assembly, Assam minister and BJP in-charge for the state Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday said.
The BJP and its ally Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) were leading in 31 out of the 47 constituencies whose trends were available, according to Election Commission officials in Agartala.
“We will be winning 44-45 seats in Tripura. We will form the government,” he told reporters here as initial trends indicated that the BJP is leading in 25 seats out the 59 seats where elections were held.
Crediting the favourable results to the hard work of party workers of Tripura in the last three years, Sarma said merger of Trinamool Congress’s Tripura unit with the BJP was the most significant factor in the politics of the Northeastern state as it consolidated the opposition and anti-CPM votes.
“People were fed up with the Manik Sarkar government which has been ruling the state for more than two decades and wanted to get rid of the CPM rule,” he said.
The Assam education minister also said the BJP’s alliance with the tribal dominated IPFT has also helped the saffron party.
“Tribal votes in Tripura is around 35% and they voted for the BJP lock, stock and barrel,” he said.
Sarma also dismissed the suggestion that the minorities, particularly the Christians in the Northeast, were against the BJP saying the community “wholeheartedly” supported the party.
Sarma said Sarkar can take shelter in West Bengal, Kerala or neighbouring Bangladesh as the BJP is going to form the next government in the state,
“Manik Sarkar has just three options before him. He can go to West Bengal, where the CPI-M still has some presence. He can go to Kerala, where the party is in power and will rule for three more years or he can go to neighbouring Bangladesh,” Sarma told reporters when asked about his comments on Sarkar during an election rally.
The BJP leader had kicked up a row by reportedly saying that the Tripura chief minister would be sent to Bangladesh after the assembly elections in the state.
Sarma reportedly made the remark at an election rally in Dhanpur, Sarkar’s constituency, while criticising the state government over the alleged deteriorating law and order situation and cross-border crimes.
The 69-year-old chief minister has governed Tripura since 1998. He is a politburo member of CPI-M and has been ruling the state for the fourth consecutive time.
Taking a dig at Rahul Gandhi, Sarma said If BJP chief Amit Shah is a student of post graduation then the Congress leader is still in nursery class.
Sarma was in the Congress for nearly two decades and a minister in the then Tarun Gogoi-led Congress governments for nearly 15 years before joining the BJP in 2015.
“I would say, if Amit Shah is a student of post graduate in politics, Rahul Gandhi is still in nursery class,” he told reporters when asked to compare Shah and Gandhi’s style of functioning.
After the Assam Assembly elections in 2016, he became education and health minister in chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal’s BJP-led government in the state.
Sarma had earlier also criticised Rahul for his style of functioning alleging the Congress president was not a serious politician and “he was busy feeding his dog” when the Assam’s then Congress government, where he was part, wanted to discuss urgent issues of the state.
