CPI-M-led Left parties will win the elections and form the eighth Left Front government in Tripura, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar said on Monday after filling his nomination for the February 18 assembly polls."CPI-M (Communist Party of India-Marxist)-led Left Front would get more seats and more votes in the next month's elections compared to the previous elections in Tripura," Sarkar told the media after filling his candidature in his Dhanpur assembly constituency (in western Tripura's Sepahijala district).The 69-years-old CPI-M politburo member said that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) being a national party forged alliance with a divisive party Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT), which according to Sarkar is a political organisation of outlawed terror outfit National Liberation Front of Tripura.
"The IPFT has been agitating for the past many years to divide the mixed populated state," he stated.Among the Left leaders in India, Sarkar is one of the the main faces and key political figures in Tripura, which has been ruled by the Left Front since 1978 with a five years break in between 1988 and 1993, when Congress and its tribal party ally Tripura Upajati Juba Samity ruled.The Chief Minister said that the assembly polls in Tripura are greatly significant for national politics too."I do believe the electorates would give a clear mandate in favour of the Left Front. The mandate would send a message to Delhi before next year's general elections to the Lok Sabha," said Sarkar.Contesting the elections since 1981, Sarkar has been elected to the state assembly six times -- 1981 (by-polls), 1983, 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2013 -- and is seeking re-election from the Dhanpur assembly constituency for the fifth consecutive time.