CPI-M MLA, Congress leader to join BJP in Tripura

 AGARTALA: In a major boost to the ruling BJP ahead of February 16 Tripura Assembly polls, CPI(M) MLA Moboshar Ali, senior Congress leader Billal Mia and a few other leaders are likely to join the saffron party in Delhi, party sources said here on Friday.

Ali was elected to the Tripura Assembly from the Kailasahar constituency in northern Tripura in 2018, while Mia won the Boxanagar seat in western Tripura twice in 1988 and 1998. Both are also senior minority leaders of their respective parties.

The party is in talks with a few other CPI(M) and Congress leaders to join the party, a BJP leader said.

"BJP would likely nominate both Ali and Mia to contest in the forthcoming Assembly polls," he told IANS on condition of anonymity. CPI(M)-led five party Left Front announced their 47 candidates on Wednesday leaving 13 seats to their new ally Congress and dropping 8 sitting MLAs including Ali. The Kailasahar Assembly constituency, from where Ali was elected in the 2018 Assembly polls, was allotted to Congress.

Former four-time Chief Minister and CPI-M's Politburo member Manik Sarkar, party stalwart and former minister Badal Chowdhury, and three more former ministers - Tapan Chakraborty, Sahid Chowdhury, Banulal Saha - were also dropped on health grounds.

Congress leaders are visibly unhappy over the meagre al lotment of seats to them. Visibly unhappy Congress leader and the party's lone MLA Sudip Roy Barman said that they had first demanded 27 seats and then 23 seats from the Left parties. "They (Left parties) have decided as per their whims and wishes, we would go as per the whims and wishes of the people," Roy Barman told IANS.

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