BJP sweeps 66 out of 67 seats in Tripura civic byelections

AGARTALA: The ruling BJP swept 66 seats out of 67 in Tripura civic byelections with a comfortable margin, while one went to the CPM, State Election Commission (SEC) said on Friday.
All the four wards of the 49-member Agartala Municipal Corporation (AMC) were won by BJP candidates convincingly with two opposition parties - CPM and Congress - lagging far behind in vote share.
The lone seat won by the CPM candidate came from Panisagar Municipal Council but the BJP candidates declared victorious in remaining 10 seats of 11-member civic body.

Amid allegations of violence and poll malpractice in civic bypolls in seven urban local bodies held on Thursday, which registered 81.36 per cent voting, the opposition CPM, Congress and Trinamool separately accused BJP of perpetrating violence on their supporters and rigging the election. However, BJP denied the charges and claimed that the opposition came together to malign the ruling party.
On the party's victory, BJP state president and chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb greeted the voters saying that the mandate shows that the people still have faith on the BJP-IPFT led government. “The people living in civic bodies want the good work taken by the government to continue in their areas too,” he added.
The CPM state committee member Pabitra Kar, however, alleged, “There was absolutely no reason to conduct byelections which has become a farce process. The BJP-IPFT government could have been selected their leaders for the vacant Wards after elected CPM members were forced to resign since the new government came to power.”
-BY Bishendu Bhattacharya