BJP has won 66 of the 67 seats in Tripura civic body elections. (File)
The ruling BJP has swept bypolls for vacant seats across municipal bodies and Agartala Municipal Corporation, bagging 66 of the 67 seats. Voting took place on Thursday and the results were announced today.
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Pabitra Kar said they would protest the "total farcical civic elections and murder of democracy in Tripura by the BJP government".
A senior official of the Tripura State Election Commission (TSEC) said BJP candidates won 66 of the 67 seats in the elections. The party had earlier won 91 seats unopposed.
The TSEC had announced the by-elections to the 158 seats in 14 municipal bodies, including the Agartala Municipal Corporation.
CPI-M state secretary Gautam Das told the media that "due to intimidation, violent attacks and prevention" their candidates could not submit nominations for most seats, allowing BJP candidates to win without any contest.
He said BJP workers also assaulted former finance minister and incumbent Public Accounts Committee Chairman Bhanulal Saha in Bishalgarh in Western Tripura on Thursday.
BJP spokesman Nabendu Bhattacharjee rejected the allegations of the CPI-M and the Congress, saying that "people have already turned their face away from these parties as they lost the public support in the recent assembly polls."