Campaigning for Tripura polls at high pitch

With around a week left before the February 16 elections to the 60-member Tripura Assembly, campaigning for the poll battle has reached a feverish pitch as parties, leaders, and candidates made all-out efforts to woo voters.

All 259 candidates, including 31 women nominees, this time giving priority in door-to-door campaigns while their parties organise small, medium and big rallies and road shows to highlight their issues.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi would address two election rallies in southern and northern Tripura on February 11 and 13, BJP President J.P. Nadda, who already addressed rallies in Tripura on February 3 and January 12, would address an election rally at Khayerpur, on the outskirts of the capital city on Thursday.

Union Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Sarbananda Sonowal, Smriti Irani, Arjun Munda, Chief Ministers Himanta Biswa Sarma (Assam), Yogi Adityanath (UP), and N. Biren Singh (Manipur), West Bengal's Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, MLA Agnimitra Paul, actor Mithun Chakraborty and many BJP leaders from outside the state campaigned for the party.

CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, politiburo member Prakash Karat, Brinda Karat and several other Left leaders already campaigned for the party.

West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, and party's National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee addressed election rallies in Agartala. Congress President Birajit Sinha said that several central leaders of the party would soon join the campaign for the party candidates. The Congress and the CPI-M led Left Front are contesting the elections jointly under a seat sharing arrangement.

They are also holding joint rallies in different parts of the state. Except the BJP, all the other parties including the most influential tribal based party Tipra Motha Party released their election manifesto and made hundreds of promises to woo the electorates.

Nadda would release the party manifesto on Thursday.

Besides the speeches, door-to-door campaign, putting posters, banners, flags, cut outs, the political parties choose various songs, rhymes, social media posts to highlight their issues and electoral topics. Various political parties specially the BJP, as part of their campaign this time are using YouTube channels and other electronic methods to attract the voters. Except for some stray incidents, the ongoing campaign is more or less peaceful across the state.