The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday secured a massive victory in the Tripura by-polls to the assembly seats of Boxanagar and Dhanpur. The voting was held on 5th September. BJP’s Tafajjal Hossain secured a staggering 34,146 votes defeating the CPI(M)’s Mizan Hossain who barely managed 3909 votes.
In Dhanpur, BJP’s Bindu Debnath won by 18,871 votes against CPI(M) candidate Kaushik Chanda who secured 11,146 votes. Debnath registered 30,017 votes. The results followed after six rounds of counting in both seats. BJP ally Tripura Motha and Congress did not field candidates.
Boxanagar assembly by-polls followed after the death of CPI(M)’s sitting candidate Samsul Haque who died of a cardiac arrest in July. The Dhanpur seat has been vacant ever since the resignation of Union Minister Pratima Bhoumik days after her election in the state assembly this year.
Interestingly, while Boxanagar is a Muslim-majority area, Dhanpur has a largely tribal population. Boxanagar assembly constituency is situated in the Sipahijala district which borders Bangladesh. About 55 per cent of the population in the seat is Muslim and has been a stronghold of the CPI(M).
BJP’s vote share has been moving northward in Boxanagar. In the Assembly elections held in February this year, the vote share of BJP candidate Tafajjal Hossain was 37.76 per cent. CPI(M) candidate Samsul Haque’s vote share was 50.34 per cent, a decline of 7.42 per cent in 2018.
In the 2018 Tripura elections, CPI(M) candidate Sahid Choudhury got 57.76 per cent votes. BJP candidate Baharul Islam Majumdar received 34.45 per cent votes in the 2018 elections. In fact, in 2018 too, the saffron party had breached its previous numbers from 2013 when its candidate Mantu Sarkar managed a mere 460 votes.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah took to Twitter to congratulate the party and the people of Tripura. He wrote, “I extend my heartfelt gratitude to the people of Tripura for making the BJP victorious in the Baxanagar and Dhanpur assembly bye-elections. It will further strengthen our determination to transform Tripura into a prosperous state under the leadership of PM @narendramodi Ji. Congratulations to the Tripura CM @DrManikSaha2 Ji and BJP President @Rajib4BJP Ji, along with the karyakartas, for this resounding victory. The BJP while celebrating the victory said that this is the end of the road for communists.”
I extend my heartfelt gratitude to the people of Tripura for making the BJP victorious in the Baxanagar and Dhanpur assembly bye-elections. It will further strengthen our determination to transform Tripura into a prosperous state under the leadership of PM @narendramodi Ji.…
— Amit Shah (@AmitShah) September 8, 2023
BJP leader Amit Malviya also took to Twitter and called the BJP’s victory as “the end of the road for communists”.
BJP wins both Assembly seats in Tripura.
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) September 8, 2023
BJP's Tafajjal Hossain won the Boxanagar seat, which has around 66% Muslim voters, by 30,237 votes. Hossain got 34,146 votes, while his nearest rival Mizan Hossain of the CPI(M) got just 3,909 votes.
In Dhanpur, which has a significant…
The victory reaffirms the BJP’s winning streak in the northeast.
