Tripura Election: BJP names Papiya Dutta as candidate from Agartala

NEW DELHI: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has announced the name of Papiya Dutta as its candidate for the Agartala assembly seat for the upcoming Tripura elections.

The announcement was made by the BJP's Central Election Committee on Sunday.

This comes a day after Congress announced the name of its candidate for Agartala.

Congress named Sudip Roy Barman as the candidate for Agartala. Both BJP and Congress have announced their candidates for the Tripura assembly polls on Saturday with the state set for a multi-cornered contest in the February 16 election for 60 seats in the state assembly.

While the Bharatiya Janata Party released two lists of 48 and six candidates, Congress declared 17 candidates. BJP and IPFT also announced that their alliance will continue.

IPFT will contest five seats. The BJP has fielded Union Minister Pratima Bhoumik from Dhanpur. Six of the party's sitting MLAs have not been given tickets for the upcoming polls.

Vimmi Majumdar, Subhash Chandra Das, Arun Chandra Bhowmik, Virendra Kishore Dev Burman, Parimal Debbarma, Viplav Kumar are MLAs who have been denied tickets.

Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha will contest the upcoming state assembly polls from Town Bordowali constituency. The BJP came to power in Tripura - which was considered a Left parties bastion - for the first time in 2018.

Meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party Central Election Committee (CEC) was held on January 27. , Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah and party chief JP Nadda were among those present in the meeting.

The last date of nominations is January 30.

Votes will be counted on March 2.