Meet the faces behind the 'shunya se shikhar' surge in Tripura

AGARTALA: With the alliance set for a stunning two-third majority in the Tripura assembly elections, the focus now shifts to who will be part of the government formed by the BJP-IPFT.

Biplab Kumar Deb

The frontrunner is Biplab Kumar Deb who is the party's state president. The former gym trainer is the face of the party in the state and has an RSS backgound. He can take a lot of credit for the rise in BJP's fortunes from its terrible show in 2013 when it netted zilch. Deb was instrumental in the BJP 'acquiring' some of the former Congress MLAs last year. During election time he carried out a door-to-door campaign for the party.


Sudip Roy Barman

Sudip Roy Barman joined the BJP only last year, reaching the saffron camp from the Congress via the Trinamool. Before this contest he represented the Agartala constituency four times in a row. Sudip, son of former chief minister Samir Ranjan Barman, started his journey as a Congress student leader and entered the assembly for the first time in 1993. In 2016, he protested the Congress allying with the Left in neighbouring West Bengal and walked over to the Trinamool along with five other MLAs. A year later, all of them joined the BJP.

NC Debbarma

In Tripura, tribal votes are the gamechanger and this is what NC Debbarma of the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura brought to the table. He helped the alliance make major inroads in tribal areas. Tribal votes, which total 37% of the total electorate, are spread across the state.