Tripura| ‘Undemocratic or Uncontested victory’- BJPs ‘controversial’ win is now the talk of the town
By Our Reporter | September 16, 2018
The Tripura BJP's uncontested win in the Panchayat bye election was although predicted, yet a controversial one. While their victory has become a topic of discussion for all, the BJP however is of a different view.
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Despite several requests by the opposition parties, the State Election Commission is in no mood to extend the date of nominations for contesting the upcoming Panchayat by-polls. The alliance partner of BJP and another ruling party IPFT also had submitted a memorandum to the State Election Commission for rescheduling the elections by publishing a notification. As a result BJP is all set to win 3080 Gram Panchayat seats uncontested out of 3207 seats scheduled for election. It means the by-election would be held only in 127 seats of Gram Panchayats on September 30.
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While speaking to TNT- The Northeast Today, senior BJP leader and MLA Ratan Chakraborty claimed this win to be an expected one as the opposition parties do not even have candidates who wish to contest elections on behalf of their parties.
"Our party candidates had already got winning certificates yesterday evening. We would have wanted other parties to contest the by-elections but they did not even have candidates who wished to contest from their party ticket. If other parties had contested we would have been able to know whether our support base had increased or not in the last six months of our government. But what can we do? People have rejected them. For the last decades they have cheated the people of the state and this is their fate now."
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But the opposition parties claimed this by-elections to be a farce and an institutional murder of democracy.
"This election is a complete farce. People have divorced themselves from the BJP government and they also know it. As a result instead of contesting these by-elections in a democratic way they have used their hooligans to forcefully acquire these by-election seats", Ex- Congress MLA, Tapas Dey said on BJP's uncontested win.
BJP's alliance partner IPFT who had also demanded rescheduling of by-elections due to wide-spread violence across the state also said that this victory is not in accordance with the democratic provisions of the State Election Commission.
"We came to know about it today.Ram Madhavji (BJP General Secretary) has also arrived in Agartala and in the evening we are going to have a meeting with him regarding this issue and then we will be able to take our future course of action" Shukla Charan Noatia, IPFT General secretary said.
