Agartala: As many as 157 contestants including 38 independents remained in the fray for 28 –members Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (ADC) where the election is scheduled on April 6 next.
According to the state election commission, there will be a multi-cornered fight in all the seats, as more than one independent candidate in each seat has been in the contest besides, BJP, IPFT, CPI-M, CPI, INC and TIPRA. A total of 185 candidates had filed nominations and finally, 25 contestants had withdrawn their candidature and four were canceled.
This is the first time in the electoral history of ADC such a large number of candidates have been in the fray where independent candidates are leading the list. The ruling BJP has fielded only 14 candidates while it’s partner in the government IPFT has 17 candidates. Apart from those, 25 from CPIM, 28 from Congress, 4 from INPT, 38 independent and 30 from other parties have been contesting the elections.
The ruling BJP and IPFT this time faced severe dissidence from their leaders after they re-united in ADC elections despite strong opposition from local leaderships of both the parties. Almost all the seats dissidence leaders of BJP have fielded their candidates defying the decision of the party to support IPFT in other seats and something was happened to IPFT too.
