Tripura: On March 2, the BJP leader, and Union Minister of State (MoS) for Social Justice & Empowerment Pratima Bhoumik won from the Dhanpur constituency in the 2023 Tripura assembly elections amassing 19,148 total votes with a staggering 42.25% vote share. She is popularly known as ‘Tripura’s Didi’ or ‘Pratima Di’.
It is pertinent to note that Dhanpur was a CPM-led Left Front bastion with former CM Manik Sarkar representing Dhanpur from March 1998 to March 2023. She contested the Tripura assembly elections from Dhanpur in 1998 and 2018 but lost against former CM Manik Sarkar both times. However, BJP’s Pratima Bhoumik managed to win Dhanpur, defeating CPI(M)’s Kaushik Chanda with a 3,500-vote margin.
In 2019, Pratima Bhoumik contested the Lok Sabha elections from the Tripura-West constituency defeating CPI(M)’s Shankar Prasad Dutta with a 3,05,689-vote margin. In 2021, the first-time Member of Parliament (MP) Pratima Bhoumik became Tripura’s first politician to become a Union Minister. She serves as the MoS for Social Justice & Empowerment. She hails from a farming family and was the first graduate from her village.
The ruling BJP is all set to retain power in the North Eastern state of Tripura winning 32 seats and sealing the majority mark to form the next Government in Tripura. The newly formed Tipra Motha Party won 13 seats, and the regional party floated by the royal scion Pradyut Kishor Debbarma is the real gainer in the 2023 election, which was demanding a separate Tipraland state. The coalition of CPI (M) and Congress won 14 seats where the CPI (M) won 11 while Congress concluded at 3 seats.
