The Bharatiya Janata Party will launch a high-voltage poll campaign on November 1 in an ambitious bid to capture power in Marxist-ruled Tripura where assembly elections are scheduled for early 2018.
The BJP which has never won an assembly seat in Tripura gained a back door entry into the state legislature when six rebel Trinamool Congress legislators formally joined the saffron party in August to make it the main opposition in the 60-member House.
At a meeting of the party’s core-committee meeting headed by its national general secretary Ram Madhav at its headquarters on Monday, the BJP decided it will intensify its campaign through rallies, padayatras and social media blitz across the state to highlight what it claims the ‘misrule’ of 25-year-old old CPI (M) government.
“We will highlight the violence by the Marxists in Tripura and Kerala through social media. The Left has adopted the path of violence to restrain growth of BJP-RSS in these two states. But BJP will combat the CPM’s violence in the coming assembly polls,” Madhav who is charge of the BJP in the northeast, said while addressing the social media workshop at Town Hall.
BJP president Amit Shah is expected to arrive here between November 15 and December 15 to take part in the padyatras. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also expected to visit the state to address rallies in two phases after the election schedule is formally declared.
{{/usCountry}}BJP president Amit Shah is expected to arrive here between November 15 and December 15 to take part in the padyatras. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also expected to visit the state to address rallies in two phases after the election schedule is formally declared.
{{/usCountry}}“We will start our election campaign from next month. We would start padayatra for a month from November 15. Amitji would join us within the schedule of padayatra. Our Prime Minister will visit in December and January to address campaigns in two phases,” said BJP vice president of the state unit Subal Bhowmik.
Pointing out that 49,000 fake voters were found in the final electoral roll in the 2013 assembly polls, Bhowmik said, “The party has given special attention to ensure error-free voters’ list in the coming elections.”
The Left Front has 51 MLAs in outgoing assembly including 50 CPI (M) MLAs and one CPI member. The BJP has six members, while the Congress has three.
The six MLAs who joined the BJP in August had defected from the Congress to the TMC just over a year ago.