Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha won the Town Bardowali constituency in the Assembly polls on Thursday, defeating Congress candidate Asish Kumar Saha with a margine of 1257 votes.
The incumbent Chief Minister received 19,586 votes.
He got 49.77 per cent votes, while his close contender Congress' Asish Kumar bagged 18,329 votes -- 46.58 per cent of the total vote share.
Manik Saha collected his winning certificate as he won the election.
"I am feeling good and after winning I am getting this certificate so what can be better than this," he said while speaking to ANI.
In the latest trends shared by the Election Commission at 2.30 pm, the BJP won 15 seats so far, and is leading in 18 seats, which comfortably leads the party to the majority if the numbers solidify.
BJP's ally Indigenous People's Front of Tripura won 1 seat. Congress has won 1 seat so far and is leading in 2 seats. The Tipra Motha Party won 7 seats, and is ahead in 5 seats.
The Northeast state saw a triangular contest as Congress and CPIM, which have been arch rivals for years, stitched a pre-poll alliance to defeat the ruling BJP.
In the 60-member Tripura assembly, the majority mark is 30 and the exit polls predicted a clear edge for the BJP over its rivals in the state.
The BJP, which had never won a single seat in Tripura before 2018, stormed to power in the last election in alliance with IPFT and had ousted the Left Front which had been in power in the border state for 35 years since 1978.
The BJP contested on 55 seats and its ally, IPFT, on six seats. But both allies had fielded candidates in the Ampinagar constituency in the Gomati district.
The Left contested on 47 and Congress on 13 seats, respectively. Of the total 47 seats, the CPM contested 43 seats while the Forward Bloc, Communist Party of India (CPI) and Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) contested one seat each.
BJP won 36 seats in the assembly and got 43.59 per cent of the votes in the 2018 election. The CPI (M) won 16 seats with a 42.22 per cent vote share. The IPFT won eight seats and Congress could not open its account.
The CPI-M-led Left Front ruled the state for nearly four decades, with a gap between 1988 and 1993, when the Congress was in power but now both parties joined hands with the intention to oust BJP from power.
( With inputs from ANI )
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