The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has formed an alliance with the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra (INPT) and National Conference of Tripura for the February 18 poll.
The party has fielded candidates in 24 seats of the total 60 constituencies in the state.
TMC's in-charge of Tripura, Sabyasachi Dutta, who is an MLA in West Bengal Assembly, told PTI that he is positive that the TMC will be a force to reckon with in the state.
A Tripura TMC leader, who did not wish to be named, said, "The party is fighting to make its presence felt in the state. We were once emerging as the main opposition, but now we have again started from scratch. Neither do we have funds nor the people to contest."
Also Read
TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had a few days ago stated that her party, which had built an organisation in Tripura, had to start afresh.
"The reason why we are unable to contest Tripura polls properly is due to a lack of funds. We were able to establish our organisational network in Tripura earlier. But because of a traitor who joined the BJP, we suffered a setback," Banerjee had said.
After defeating the 34-year-old Left regime in West Bengal in 2011, Banerjee had set her sight on Tripura that has a huge Bengali-speaking population. She had entrusted Roy with the job of expanding the party's base in the border state.
The TMC began expanding its base in the state but things started changing when the BJP came into the picture.
The six MLAs who had switched over to the TMC crossed over to the BJP just ahead of the presidential elections citing their displeasure over the TMC's support to Congress presidential candidate Meira Kumar. The TMC leadership believes it was Roy who had engineered the defection to the BJP.
"We joined the BJP as the TMC had joined hands with both the CPI(M) and the Congress. When we had joined the TMC, we had thought that the party was serious in fighting the CPI(M). But the TMC's decision to help the Congress and the CPI(M) disappointed us," BJP MLA Sudip Roy Burman said.
"The TMC does not have a base in the state and they are asking for 30 seats. Is it a logical demand? We don't need TMC," Tripura Congress president Birajit Sinha told PTI.
Sinha blamed the TMC for weakening the Congress in the state by poaching the six party MLAs in 2016 who had later crossed over to the BJP.
Sabyasachi Dutta, however, said the Congress was not at all interested in an alliance with the TMC as it had offered only five seats to the party.
Describing the TMC as an "insignificant political force" in Tripura, Mukul Roy said the people of the state want the BJP to end the Left misrule in the north eastern state.
"The people of Tripura want to be part of the developmental process that the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have initiated," he said.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content