Agartala, March 19 Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha expressed confidence on Thursday about the BJP's victory in the by-election to the Dharmanagar Assembly seat, asserting that it would be a one-sided affair since the opposition was "unsettled".
The by-election is scheduled for April 9, with the BJP fielding Jahar Chakraborti for the contest that has been necessitated by the death of Assembly speaker Biswabandhu Sen on December 26 last year.
"In the 2023 Assembly polls, the Congress had an electoral understanding with the Left Front. The BJP won the elections. This time, the Left Front fielded Amitabha Datta as its candidate and it doesn't have any electoral understanding with the Congress. We are 100 per cent sure of winning the seat," the chief minister said.
Saha said that by-election candidate Jahar Chakraborti, a BJP state committee member, was among the few veteran leaders in the entire North Tripura district. "He is a suitable candidate for the party," Saha told the reporters outside his office in the state Assembly.
Claiming that the victory for the BJP in the by-election was "inevitable", the chief minister said the electoral battle would be a "one-sided affair with the opposition looking unsettled".
On the polls to village committees in Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC), Saha said the state election commission (SEC), in an affidavit in the Supreme Court, submitted on Wednesday that the polls to 587 village committees -- akin to village panchayats -- would be completed by June.
"Actually, we wanted to conduct elections in the village committees during September because the monsoon normally arrives in the state in June. But the SEC informed the apex court that the village committee elections will be completed by June.
"If the monsoon starts at its normal time, the Supreme Court will review the schedule and take a decision. It (elections) may be deferred to September," he said.
Leader of Opposition in the Tripura Assembly, Jitendra Chaudhury, took a potshot at the BJP-led government over the issue.
"It is unprecedented that the BJP's ally Tipra Motha Party had to seek the Supreme Court's intervention to hold elections to village committees," he said.