Tripura By-Polls: BJP Makes Huge Inroads; Narrows Gap With CPI-M, Replaces Congress As Main Opposition

Though the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) won both assembly seats that were up for grabs in the by-polls conducted on 19 November in Tripura, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) successfully made inroads into the communist-led state.

In the by-polls conducted on 19 November, the results for which were declared today, CPI-M managed to get 52 per cent of the votes, BJP received 21 per cent vote and Congress shrunk to a little over 2 per cent.

The case of Barjala
CPI-M candidate Jhumu Sarkar defeated his nearest BJP rival Shistamohan Das by a margin of 3,374 votes in Barjala (SC) constituency. CPI-M garnered 15,769 votes, while BJP secured 12,395 votes (a gap of 21 per cent).

By-poll in the constituency was necessitated due to the resignation of Congress MLA Jitendra Sarkar in June last year. Congress secured only 804 votes, while Trinamool Congress (TMC), 5,629 votes.

In the 2013 Tripura assembly polls, CPI-M candidate Jitendara Das had garnered 17,467 (48.52 per cent) votes in Barjala constituency, while BJP’s Samir Biswas had only managed to get 511 (1.42 per cent) votes.

Compared to 2013 Tripura assembly elections, when the difference between the two parties stood at 47.1 per cent, the gap between the two shrunk to 21 per cent.

INC’s Jintendra Sarkar had won the Barjala seat in 2013 with 17728 votes, but the party was nowhere to be seen in the recent by-polls.

The data is available here.

Khowai Constituency

In Khowai, CPI-M candidate Biswajit Datta trounced his nearest TMC candidate Manoj Das by a margin of 16,047 votes. CPI-M secured 24,810 votes, and TMC, 8,763 votes. The seat fell vacant due to the death of CPI-M MLA Samir Deb Sarkar, a veteran party leader.

The opposition Congress candidate, who secured 13,859 votes in the last assembly elections in 2013, secured only 696 votes in this election. Party’s vote count in Khowai shrunk by over 94 per cent.