Agartala, Jun 6 (PTI) Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha, three other BJP candidates and three Congress nominees filed nomination papers for by-elections to four Assembly constituencies on Monday, the last date for doing so.

Saha, a Rajya Sabha member, was appointed the state's chief minister last month, replacing Biplab Kumar Deb.

Also Read | Rajya Sabha Elections 2022: After Rajasthan Congress, BJP Shifts Its MLAs to a Private Hotel Till June 10.

Saha is the BJP's candidate for the Town Bordowali assembly seat.

Saffron party nominees also filed nominations for Agartala, Surma and Jubarajnagar seats that are going to polls on June 23. Votes will be counted on June 26.

Also Read | Ministry of Railways Disbands Five Railway Engineers Territorial Army Regiments.

Three Congress candidates - Sudip Roy Barman, Asish Saha and Susmita Debnath - also submitted their nomination papers for Agartala, Town Bardowali and Jubarajnagar seats respectively during the day. The party is not contesting from Surma.

“Altogether 24 nomination papers were received by returning officers of the four Assembly constituencies till Monday, the last day for filing papers,” Additional Chief Electoral Officer Usa Jen Mog said.

Altogether seven candidates have filed nomination papers for the Town Bardowali constituency and five for the Agartala seat. Six candidates each filed their nominations for Jubarajnagar and Surma constituencies.

The nomination papers will be scrutinised on Tuesday.

All eyes will be on the Town Bardowali seat in West Tripura district and Agartala, the state capital.

The main contest in Town Bardowali is likely to be held between Chief Minister Manik Saha who is not a member of the Assembly, and Asish Saha, the winner of the 2018 election with a margin of more than 11,000 votes from the seat as a BJP nominee.

Mainak Saha, who quit the Congress and joined the BJP in 2016, was made the party's state president in 2020. BJP legislators Asish Saha and Sudip Roy Barman resigned from the assembly and gave up their memberships in the party in February. They later joined the Congress.

In the Agartala constituency, Sudip Roy Barman will lock horns with BJP state vice-president Ashok Sinha.

Candidates of the CPI(M)-led Left Front, Trinamool Congress and the TIPRA Motha, a regional party headed by royal scion Pradyot Kishore Debbarma, submitted their nomination papers for the bye-elections earlier.

The bye-polls are necessitated due to the death of CPI(M) MLA Ramendra Chandra Debnath (Jubarajnagar) and the resignations of Roy Barman (Agartala) and Asish Saha (Town Bardowali). Besides, the Surma seat became vacant after BJP legislator Asish Das was declared disqualified by the Assembly Speaker.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)