Agartala, Jan. 24: The Congress finally announced its list of candidates for the Assembly elections in Tripura today. The party has put up 42 candidates for the polls, having already allotted the other 18 seats in the 60-member House to its alliance partner, the Indigenous National Party of Tripura.
Tripura PCC president Birajit Sinha, who returned from New Delhi with the list approved by AICC chief Sonia Gandhi today, released the list to newspersons. All 13 sitting MLAs of the party have been re-nominated. The list contains 19 new candidates and six women.
The party manifesto would be released after February 1, Sinha said, adding that Sonia Gandhi would address three election meetings in the four district headquarters of Tripura.
Security measures
More forces are on their way to Tripura to ensure a free and fair election on February 26.
Altogether 19 companies of BSF will arrive here soon to be posted along the border ? at least till the Assembly polls on February 26, sources in the BSF headquarters at Shalbagan near here said. The sources said a special operation nicknamed ?Operation Hoshiyar? would be launched all along the border after the arrival of the additional companies to check infiltration from Bangladesh who ?play a role whenever there is election in Tripura?.
Left Front leaders, including chief minister Manik Sarkar, have often said that the nine BSF battalions posted along Tripura?s 856-km-long porous border with Bangladesh are inadequate to check transborder movement of militants sheltered in the neighbouring country.
?Apart from this, the Union home ministry is reported to have decided to rush 90 more companies of CRPF to Tripura for the polls,? a source said.
At present, 14 battalions of CRPF and three battalions of Assam Rifles are deployed in the state for counter-insurgency operations. Official sources said they had asked for another 190 companies of security forces for the election.
Sources said nine of the state?s 15 subdivisions were located on the border and the affinity of language and culture made it difficult to identify Bangaldeshis from the local residents. The banned militant outfits, All-Tripura Tiger Force and the National Liberation Front of Tripura, who allegedly have at least 52 bases in Bangladesh, always use the long and porous border to move into Bangladesh.
Sources said militants posed a threat to elections in the hilly interiors even though more than 1,000 polling booths were located in the vulnerable areas. In the plains, criminals from Bangladesh are likely to create trouble, taking advantage of the porous border in at least 20 of the state?s 60 Assembly constituencies.