Left confident of Tripura victory

Agartala: The CPI-M is confident of retaining power in its bastion of Tripura in Sunday's assembly elections and achieving a turnaround in the Left movement across the country, though the BJP is battling tooth and nail to oust the Left Front government. In India's 65-year-long electoral history, the country's dominant Left party, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), has never been in direct confrontation with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). However, political developments in Tripura in 2016 and 2017 have set the stage for their first face-to-face battle as the saffron outfit has emerged as the key opposition party in this Communist-ruled northeastern state. All the top leaders of CPI-M, BJP, Congress and Trinamool Congress participated in the hectic two-month long poll campaign that ended on Friday afternoon. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP President Amit Shah and party's General Secretary in-charge of northeastern states Ram Madhav, the Chief Ministers of five BJP-ruled states, CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, many party politburo members including Prakash Karat, Brinda Karat, Biman Bose, addressed a record number of election rallies since December. Hours before the end of campaign, Congress President Rahul Gandhi and other central leaders boosted the campaign of the Congress party, which has been hit by large numbers of top state party leaders, seven MLAs and huge number of workers joining the BJP since last year.