AGARTALA, Sept 21 - The high-voltage campaign for the Badharghat by-election in Tripura ended peacefully today.
Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, former Chief Minister and Leader of the Opposition Manik Sarkar, and Congress heavyweights like Abdul Mannan, Subal Bhowmik and Gopal Roy campaigned for their respective party candidates.
Winning the Badharghat by-election has become important for the ruling BJP to maintain its supremacy in the State�s political landscape as it has been on a winning spree in the State since the 2018 Assembly polls.
The Badharghat Assembly constituency, a traditionally anti-Left seat, is all set to witness a three-cornered electoral battle.
In the 2018 Assembly elections, Dilip Sarkar of the Congress had contested on a BJP ticket and won the seat by a margin of over 5,000 votes, whereas his winning margin was only 300-odd votes in the 2013 Assembly polls. A total of 57,906 voters will decide the fate of four candidates in the by-election.
The ruling BJP hopes to increase its winning margin this time, banking on a favourable political climate in the State.
�We are very much confident of winning the seat with a huge margin, probably more than the margin of last year�s election. The reason is simple. There is no strong opposition in the State and a lot of welfare activities have been carried out by the Biplab Kumar Deb Government,� said State BJP general secretary Rajib Bhattacharjee here today.
In the recently-concluded three-tier Panchayat elections, the Congress made some gains at the cost of the CPI(M), but it is unlikely to maintain the momentum due to the lackadaisical attitude of State Congress president Pradyot Kishore Debbarman.
On the other hand, all frontline leaders of the CPI(M), including Manik Sarkar and Gautam Das, had campaigned for the party candidate.
To ensure free and fair elections, unprecedented security arrangements will be made in and around the polling booths and prohibitory orders will be issued a day before the polling date on September 23, an official of the District Election Office said.
All the polling booths will be manned by Central forces to keep troublemakers at bay.
