Tripura Election Results 2023: BJP's likely CM candidate Manik Saha wins from Bardowali

New Tripura CM Manik Saha. (PC-Twitter)

As votes in Tripura are being counted, incumbent chief minister and Bharatiya Janata Party’s probable candidate for the post, Manik Saha, has won from the Bardowali constituency.

The 70-year-old politician was pitted against Congress' Asish Kumar Saha and won by a close margin of 832 votes.

Manik Saha had taken oath as the Tripura’s chief minister on May 15, 2022, a day after Biplab Kumar Deb resigned from the post. The professor of dental surgery steered the party’s campaign in the run-up to the 2023 assembly polls held on February 16.

Though the party has not decided the chief ministerial candidate in Tripura, Saha is seen as the frontrunner for the post. After a long association with the Indian National Congress, Saha shifted to the BJP camp in 2016.

The party leadership had made him the in-charge of urban areas and looked after the booth management committee in the 2018 Assembly polls when the BJP had emerged victorious and wrested control from the CPI (M) who had ruled the state for more than 30 years.

During 2019 general elections, Saha also held the responsibility of carrying out membership drive.

The initial trends on the Election Commission (EC) website suggest that the BJP and its alliance partner IPFT are likely to form the government in Tripura. The two parties have crossed the half-way mark.