LF and TMC announce list of candidates for LS polls in Tripura

Agartala, March 6: The ruling Left Front and Trinamool Congress (TMC) have announced their party candidates for the two Lok Sabha constituencies in Tripura where elections would be held on April 7 and 12 respectively.

Convener of the Left Front and sitting MP Khagen Das said, state Industries and Commerce Minister Jitendra Chowdhuri would contest from the Tripura (East) ST constituency and Shankar Prasad Dutta, former MLA, would contest from the Tripura (West) constituency. Both the candidates belonged to CPI-M, the dominant partner of the Left Front.

Das said this decision was taken at the meeting of the Left Front committee held here yesterday. Both the candidates are new faces.

"We have selected new faces because I am 76 and suffering from some old age problems and Bajuban Reang, MP from East Tripura constituency is also above 70 and is facing the same problem," Das told reporters.

Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress has announced that former Congress Minister and Chairman of the Tripura unit of TMC, Ratan Chakraborty would contest from Tripura West constituency and Bhriguram Reang, a former leader of opposition Congress would contest from Tripura East constituency.

The opposition Congress and BJP are yet to announce their candidates for the fray. A total of 23,83,146 voters will exercise their franchise in the general elections from Tripura where elections for the two parliamentary seats will be held on April 7 and 12 respectively. Keeping in view the security arrangements, elections would be held on two days, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Ashutosh Jindal said.

PTI