2018 Tripura Assembly Elections Feb 18,2018 - Tripura’s new government to take oath on Thursday March 08,2018

 

The new government will be sworn in on Thursday in Tripura, where the BJP led alliance defeated the CPI(M) in power in the northeastern state for 25 years.

The BJP and alliance partner, the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT), scripted history on Saturday March 03,2018 by winning the Tripura assembly polls with a two-third majority in the state, ensuring India would now have 15 chief ministers from the party.

The BJP in 2013 had forfeited its deposit in 49 of the 50 seats it contested, bagging less than 2% of the vote.

This time around, it swept to a comfortable majority winning 43 seats with an ally, ousting the long-serving Communist chief minister of the state, Manik Sarkar.

 Biplab Deb,a young BJP leader with a background in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is expected to be the state’s new chief minister.

BJP Tripura state president Biplab Deb with party supporters celebrate party's victory in the state assembly election during 'Vijoy' rally, in Agartala on Sunday  March 4,2018

 

2018 Tripura Assembly Elections Final Results Saturday March 03,2018

Of the 59 Assembly seats, the BJP and its ally Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) bagged 43. The BJP won 35 seats and the IPFT won eight. 

 

The CPM could get only 16 seats and the Congress drew a blank. This marks the end of Manik Sarkar's two decades as Tripura chief minister.

For the ruling CPM, the results came as a shocker

Some of the big losers of the CPM are the outgoing deputy speaker of state Assembly Pabitra Kar, Power Minister Manik Dey, Tribal Welfare Minister Aghore Debbarma and Forests Minister Naresh Jamatia.

The CPM members shied away from speaking with the media, but issued a statement conceding defeat and contending that the BJP, apart from other factors, utilised massive deployment of money and other resources to influence the elections

Tripura has been among the Left Front's longstanding bastions, which is why its drubbing at the hands of the BJP-IPFT alliance marks the beginning of a new chapter in the state's polity. In the state Assembly elections since 1983, the BJP had never polled more than 2 percent votes, except in 1998 when it polled 5.87 percent votes.

The Congress, which had won 10 seats and 36.53 percent votes in the last Assembly polls, got a mere 1.8 percent of votes and could not win a single seat.