Independence Day was celebrated across states and Union territories on Thursday, as several chief ministers announced job schemes while some others vowed their support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of a Viksit Bharat by 2047.
With the declaration of results for the Tripura Assembly polls on Thursday, the Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power in the state by winning 32 seats and its ally Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) winning one.
While Opposition MLAs in other states are dumping their parties to join the Bharatiya Janata Party, Tripura is seeing a reverse trend.
From Saha joining the saffron party in 2016 to being made chief minister last year in a brand renewal exercise last year, it has been a short but upward journey for the 69-year-old dental surgeon-turned politician.
The incident happened around 4.30 pm in Kumarghat area during the 'Ulta Rath Yatra' or return car festival of Lord Jagannath organised by ISKCON, they said.
The cross-border rail project near Tripura's capital Agartala and Akhaura in Bangladesh is expected to boost cross-border trade, and significantly reduce the travel time between Agartala and Kolkata via Dhaka.
Non-BJP chief ministers holding the home portfolios are Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), Nitish Kumar (Bihar), Naveen Patnaik (Odisha) and MK Stalin (Tamil Nadu).
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday held discussions with Tipra Motha supremo Pradyot Kishore Debbarma, in the presence of Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda, over various issues faced by the indigenous people of Tripura, a senior leader of the saffron party said.
Twenty people have been arrested in connection with the post-poll violence incidents in the state, the police said.
'At a time when people don't like to even sacrifice their panchayat seat, Biplab Kumar Deb sacrificed the chair of chief minister with a smiling face.'
'Removing Biplab Deb and replacing him with Manik Saha is a fruitless exercise that the BJP national leadership has indulged in.' 'It is foolish to think that people will forget what these two have done to the state and its people in the last four years.'
What some of our leaders were up to on the weekend.
The action was taken a day after the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party had urged the Election Commission to take steps against poll officials who "defaced" PM Modi's photograph in banners and hoardings put up in public places in the state, instead of removing them.
The incident happened around 4.30 pm in Uttar Pabiacherra in Kumarghat during the 'Ulta Rath Yatra' or return car festival organised by ISKCON, they said. During this festival, the sibling deities -- Lord Balabhadra, Devi Subhdara and Lord Jagannath -- return to their abode in a chariot, a week after Rath Yatra.
Nearly 88 per cent of voting was recorded in the one-day Tripura assembly elections, which were "largely peaceful', a senior EC official said on Friday.
Consolidating its position, the Bharatiya Janata Party wrested high-profile Rampur and Azamgarh Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh from the Samajwadi Party and won three assembly seats, including that of Chief Minister Manik Saha, in Tripura in by-election results announced on Sunday.
All preparations for conducting free, fair and peaceful elections to the 60-member Tripura assembly on Thursday have been completed, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Gitte Kirankumar Dinakarro said.
Uncertain political times in Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura.
A fact-finding team of MPs and MLAs from the Left parties and the Congress, which arrived in Agartala on Friday to look into post-poll violence in Tripura, was attacked in Sepahijala district, police said.
The northeastern state is set to witness a triangular fight this time, with the BJP-IPFT coalition seeking to retain supremacy, the Left-Congress combine looking to wrest power, and regional outfit Tipra Motha making its debut at the hustings after its stunning performance in the autonomous council polls.
While the opposition alliance is putting up a united front in Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand's Dumri, Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Uttarakhand's Bageshwar, its constituents are contesting against each other in Dhupguri in West Bengal and Puthuppally in Kerala.
Sarma, whose stock is high in Delhi had earlier captured eyeballs as the BJP's first star campaigner from the region in far away Gujarat and Delhi.
'... that they should listen to people of the soil of the North East and find a permanent solution to tribal problems.'
rivals Congress, JMM and TMC and Samajwadi Party.
High voter turnout was recorded in most of the seven assembly constituencies in six states where by-elections were held on Tuesday.
The BJP also announced a Rs 5 meal scheme for all, named after religious guru Anukul Chandra, and setting up of a Regional Institute of Medical Sciences hospital in Agartala.
In a four-cornered fight, the real battle is between Union minister Pratima Bhoumik and CPM's Kaushik Chanda.
The rhetoric that we are fed daily needs to be measured against performance and the facts. That is not happening, points out Aakar Patel.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party managed to notch up a morale-boosting win on its 'Mission Northeast' on Thursday by retaining Tripura emphatically, despite anti-incumbency and newcomer Tipra Motha playing spoilers to its party, while also piggy-backing to power in Nagaland on Neiphiu Rio-led NDPP's shoulder.
While Tripura unit of TMC described it as an "attack on democracy" and said they were confined to their hotel by the police, Manik Das, Superintendent of Police, West Tripura, claimed members of the 22-member I-Pac team are being questioned in a Agartala city-based hotel, as part of a routine check-up.
'...despite not being ideologically aligned with a vast section of the people of the north east.' 'But the results in Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya show that no party, including the BJP, can say that it has really done well.'
Counting began at 8 am under multi-tier security cover. At first, postal ballots will be counted and then EVMs opened.
A total of 69.96 per cent of 28.13 lakh voters exercised their franchise in the Tripura assembly elections till 3 pm on Thursday, amid sporadic incidents of violence, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Gitte Kirankumar Dinakarrao said.
Counting of votes for the bypolls in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand will be taken up on Sunday.
'Earlier, a lot of fear was in the minds of people that the BJP is anti-Christian and anti-minority, but over the years people have learnt to accept that the BJP is just another national party.'
Polling was by and large peaceful in the bypolls for three Lok Sabha and seven assembly seats spread across five states and Delhi on Thursday barring an incident of stabbing of a policeman in Tripura, where polling was the highest at 76.62 per cent.
It seems the grand old party is trying to stage a comeback in the state which it ruled at one time, but also to its progeny the Trinamool Congress which has vowed to come to power in Tripura in the 2023 state assembly elections.
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