Tripura Congress may field former CM and mother of Tripura royal scion in LS polls

AGARTALA

: Congress president Rahul Gandhi may field two stalwarts - former CM Samir

Samir Ranjan Barman

and Rajmata Bibhu Kumari Devi (mother of royal scion Pradyot Kishore Debbarman) - for the two Lok Sabha seats in the state. While Barman may contest polls from West Tripura, Devi may fight election from the East Tripura reserved seat.

The differences between BJP and IPFT over seat-sharing came to the fore recently when the saffron party refused to leave East Tripura tribal seat for the the IPFT. The national general secretary of BJP, Ram Madhav, is arriving here on Wednesday to sort out the dispute. He is also scheduled to hold a series of meetings with party leaders to finalise the poll strategy.

On Monday evening, Barman met Rahul in New Delhi along with newly appointed Tripura Pradesh Congress president Pradyot Kishore Debbarman. Though neither Barman nor Pradyot have spoken about the meeting, party leaders here indicated that they had a detailed discussion on candidate selection for the upcoming Lok Sabha election. According to party insiders, Barman is the main contender from the West Tripura general seat.

There was also discussions on the scheduled visit of Rahul to Tripura on March 20 next to kick off the party's campaign. The AICC had recently withdrawn the 6-year expulsion notice against Barman and welcomed him to the party fold. The candidature of Barman in West Tripura is critical for BJP as his son and health minister Sudip Roybarman is looking after BJP's election management there.

Similarly, Rajmata's candidature from East Tripura will garner the royal sentiments of both tribals and non-tribals cutting across political allegiance.