After forming government for the second time in Tripura in March, the Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP) has set its focus to strengthen the organisation by identifying the weakness in booth-level for better performance in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls next year, party functionaries familiar with the matter said on Saturday.
The state has two Lok Sabha seats that have been with the BJP since 2019. BJP state chief Rajib Bhattacharjee has already instructed all the activists to concentrate on making the party organisation strong by identifying the weak booths.
“Our preparations for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls have already been started in the booth and mandal level. We are hopeful of winning two Lok Sabha seats again,” Bhattacharjee said recently.
People familiar with the matter claimed that though the BJP came to power again, the party is looking into the loopholes during the recently concluded Assembly polls.
BJP spokesperson Nabendu Bhattacharjee said that the party activists have already started working as per instructions from the central leadership.
“ Prime Minister Narendra Modi has prioritised to get in touch with the people, to know their needs. So, work has started in this direction primarily,” said Bhattacharjee.
In the 60-seated Assembly, the BJP won 32 out of 55 seats where they contested while its alliance partner Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura ( IPFT) managed to get one seat to set up their government for second term.
The CPI(M) and the Congress jointly contested the polls this time to finally secure 11 and 3 seats, respectively.
The TIPRA Motha, a regional party headed by royal scion Pradyot Kishore Debbarma, emerged as the main opposition by securing 13 seats.
Currently, the TIPRA Motha is eyeing to expand their footprints in the village committees of Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council ( TTAADC), the poll of which is yet to take place.
Elections to the 587 village committees in the TTAADC were supposed to be held in 2021 but it didn’t happen due to Covid-19 pandemic. Accordingly, the party filed writ petition in the high court to press the state government to conduct the polls at the earliest.
“ It has already seen two years’ delay in holding the village committee polls. We want the polls to be conducted at the earliest,” said TIPRA Motha spokesperson Anthony Debbarma.
CPI(M) state secretary Jitendra Chaudhury said,” We shall start our preparations for the Lok Sabha polls in due course of time.”
The people said that the BJP sees an opportunity to make inroads in the northeastern state for the first time after the party, along with the IPFT, toppled the two decade-old Marxist government in 2018 by bagging 44 seats leaving 16 to the CPI(M).