Union Home Minister Amit Shah Minister with Tripura CM Manik Saha being garlanded during a Bharatiya Janata Party rally at Dhamanagar in poll-bound Tripura, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023. (PTI Photo)
Ahead of the coming Assembly elections, the poll season in the Northeast is heating up, with Union Home Minister Amit Shah dropping in for a visit to Tripura and Nagaland this week. Along with Meghalaya, the two states are scheduled to hold elections next month.
The high-profile visits, following soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tour of Tripura and Meghalaya last month, signals the BJP’s early push in a region where it now is part of the ruling coalition in most states, in some form or another.
In Tripura, Shah flagged off the BJP campaign with a rath yatra, its first for the state, to highlight its government’s achievements, after dislodging the CPI(M) from power after five years.
The Election Commission sounded strict caution on Thursday against poll violence and rule violations in Tripura and said that it had met administrative, security and election officials and identified 25 issues to be addressed for ensuring free and fair Assembly polls.
In a media briefing prior to their departure from the state in the morning, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said, “In many states, pre-poll violence doesn’t happen anymore. In Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, where polls were held recently, there was no violence. Intimidating any candidate, burning party offices, preventing free and fair voting would not be tolerated. Everyone has been given strict instructions that these would not be allowed at any cost. Confidence building and free voter participation are paramount.”
