India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has won around 96% of the seats uncontested in the by-elections in the northeast state of Tripura scheduled to be held on September 30, State Election Commissioner G Kameshwara Rao said on Tuesday.
By-polls to the three-tier panchayat system in Tripura were necessitated by large-scale resignations tendered by office-bearers in the wake of assumption of power by the BJP-IPFT coalition government from March 9.
Owing to this, a total of 3,207 Gram Panchayat seats, 161 Panchayat Samiti seats and 18 Zilla Parishad seats were rendered vacant.
“Over 96% of these seats were won uncontested by the BJP,” the state election commissioner said. “Only 132 gram panchayat seats along with seven panchayat samiti seats are now left to be contested. All of the Zilla Parishad seats have been captured by the BJP, again uncontested.”
The opposition parties, including the CPI-(M) and Congress, attributed massive rigging as the reason behind BJP’s resounding victory, however.
Interestingly, BJP’s ally IPFT has been fighting the panchayat by-polls separately and spoke on the lines of the opposition parties, who have demanded a rescheduling of the polls, claiming they have not been allotted enough time for filing nomination papers.
“There is no scope of postponing the by-polls because there is no allegation against the block development officers, who act as returning officers for gram panchayats, and the district magistrates, who act as returning officers for Zilla Parishads,” the state election commissioner said.
By and large, the minimal participation of other political parties in the Panchayat by-polls ensured a smooth victory for the BJP.
In 3,207 gram panchayat seats, CPI-(M) and Congress fielded 115 and 120 candidates, respectively. BJP’s ally IPFT managed to field only 63 candidates.
In 161 panchayat samiti seats, both CPI-(M) and Congress fielded eight candidates, while IPFT fielded six.
In the 18 Zilla Parishad seats, CPI-(M) fielded only one candidate. Congress fielded six candidates. IPFT had no candidates.
On the other hand, BJP fielded candidates in all the gram panchayat, panchayat samiti and Zilla Parishad seats.
