Assembly polls: Battle lines drawn up in Tripura

Battle lines have been drawn up for tomorrow's polls to the 60-member Tripura Assembly where heavy weights Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, TPCC president Sudip Ray Barman and president of Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura Bijay Hrankhwal are among 249 candidates in the fray.

The Left Front is hoping to script history by returning to power for a fifth consecutive time. The main contest will be between the Left Front and its allies and the Congress and its partners.

The CPI-M, the dominant partner in the Left Front, is contesting 56 seats, RSP two and CPI and Forward Block one each.

The Congress is contesting 48 seats and its alliance partners INPT in 11 and National Conference of Tripura in one.

The candidates include 14 women, who are four less than those who had contested in the 2008 elections. An electorate of 23,52,505 including 11,64,656 women areexpected to exercise their franchise in the election contested by a total of 16 political parties and independents.

The CPI(M), which has taken credit for ending the four-decade-old insurgency in the state and ensuring peace and communal harmony, is projecting Tripura as a model state in terms of good governance having topped the list in the implementation of MNREGA.

The CPI(M) has also highlighted the 15 awards it received from the Centre for successful implementation of various schemes.

The Congress-INPT-NCT alliance has made "bad governance" of the Manik Sarkar-led government a poll issue, alleging that despite availability of central funds, employees, unemployed and farmers remained deprived during the 20-year LF regime.

Corruption and nepotism by party leaders and partisan behaviour of the government are also important issues for the alliance.

Prominent leaders who campaigned in the run-up to the election include Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, Union minister Deepa Das Munshi, Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Nabam Tuki, Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, CPI-Mleaders Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury, Surya Kanta Mishra and Brinda Karat.

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