Agartala: The All India Congress Committee (AICC) on Friday announced its first list of 39 candidates across eight states and one Union Territory for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Naming the candidates, the party fielded Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president Ashish Kumar Saha from the West constituency. Shah will contest against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate and former Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb.
The state has two Lok Sabha constituencies – West and East.
Saha is the sole Rajya Sabha member from the state since the previous year. Apart from Tripura, the list has names of contestants from Nagaland, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Telangana, Chhatisgarh, Kerala, Karnataka, and Lakshwadeep, as per the candidates’ list signed by the party’s general secretary KC Venugopal.
A veteran leader, Saha won assembly polls in 2013 on a Congress ticket and later switched to the Trinamool Congress in 2016 and later moved to the BJP a year later and won the 2018 assembly election on its ticket from Bardowali. He, however, resigned as the BJP MLA ahead of the 2023 assembly polls and returned to Congress. He contested on a Congress ticket from Bardowali seat against incumbent chief minister Dr Manik Saha but lost.
A year ago, Saha replaced Birajit Sinha as the Tripura Congress state president.
{{/usCountry}}A year ago, Saha replaced Birajit Sinha as the Tripura Congress state president.
{{/usCountry}}As part of the opposition INDIA alliance, the Congress will be contesting the Lok Sabha polls with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Tripura.
As the candidature of the Congress was declared in the West seat, the Left Front, which is yet to announce its candidate, will field its candidate in the East constituency.
TIPRA Motha party founder Pradyot Kishore Debbarma’s elder sister Pragya Kumari is likely to contest from the East Lok Sabha constituency, but the party symbol is yet to be decided.