Two women look to upstage Sarkar in his bastion

AGARTALA: Two women candidates from BJP and Congress are confident of defeating Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar in his constituency in the February 18 polls.

Sarkar is locked in a quadrangular contest in his home constituency of Dhanpur, where Trinamool’s Jahir Uddin is the fourth candidate. Sarkar, Tripura’s longest-serving chief minister, is fighting for a fifth consecutive term. After filing his nomination on January 29, he said he is hopeful that the “peace-loving people would exercise their franchise to elect a Left government for the eighth time”. But his opponents — BJP’S Pratima Bhowmik and Congress candidate Lakshmi Nag — say they can upstage him.

This is the second time that Bhowmik, a senior BJP leader and also party general secretary, is contesting against Sarkar. She had fought against him in 1998 for the Dhanpur seat and lost. Sarkar went on to become the CM for the first time in 1998 and has been winning from the seat since.

With a population of over 43,000, Dhanapur, which falls in Sonamura sub-division, is heavily populated by Muslims. But that has not deterred Bhowmik who is hoping for a saffron surge fuelled by people’s anger against the government.

“The CM’S constituency is devoid of proper civic amenities like drinking water, health care, road, educational institutions...people have grudges against Sarkar for under development. People want a change now at any cost,” said Bhowmik.