450 Congress aspirants file application for Assembly polls

Agartala, Jan 13 (UNI) Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) has received 450 applications from party aspirants for the Assembly polls in February.

Party observer and AICC representative Sanjoy Bapna told reporters here yesterday that the TPCC was asked to scrutinise the applications in consultation with the election steering committee and to send the list to the Party high command for final appooval.

''The process of selection will be completed in next three-four days but the declaration will be made only after announcement of the poll schedule,'' Mr Bapna said, adding that he received representation from Congress Women Cell and Tribal Wing for allotment of the seats as per the norms.

During his one-day visit to the State Capital, Mr Bapna held several round of meetings with the TPCC leaders and made attempts to resolve the differences among various factions of the party.

However, his bid was foiled as Congress Tribal Cell and a group of senior leaders refused to accept the poll strategy and revolted against the move, party sources inporhed.

According to the sources, party's tribal leaders had been refusing the proposal of forging alliance with the tribal based Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) and suggested to put tribal candidates up in 20 reserved seats, which the TPCC did not approve. Congress Tribal Cell leader Jadu Mohan Tripura has alleged that TPCC president Samir Ranjan Barman had been trying to forge alliance with the INPT, a political front of banned militant outfit NLFT that could create an adverse impact on the Congress.

Meanwhile, INPT leaders met Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi on alliance issue to finalise the bid yesterday, Mr Barman said, adding that they were trying to consolidate non-left votes for ousting left front government.

However, State Forward Bloc (FB) has reaffirmed it's stand on seat-sharing issue with Left and clarified that they would fight the election alone if they were not given three seats.

FB State Committee held meeting yesterday and discussed the issue of pre-poll alliance with the CPI(M).

The stand-off between the CPI(M) and the FB continued as the later refused to contest in one seat.

UNI BB PP RD GT RN1426