The counting of votes for the 60 assembly seats in Tripura began at 8 am today (March 2, Thursday), the voting for which took place on February 16. In a major embarrassment for Mamata Banerjee, her Trinamool Congress party received 0.88 percent of the votes in this election. Interestingly, the Tripura voters preferred NOTA (None Of The Above) over Mamata Banerjee’s TMC.
As per the data available on the Election Commission website, a significantly higher number of voters preferred NOTA over Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress Party in the Tripura polls. While Mamata-led TMC has bagged 0.88 percent of the vote share, NOTA outperformed them by securing 1.36 percent of the total vote share.
Notably, despite Mamata Banerjee’s attempts at wooing voters ahead of the polls, her party failed to outperform NOTA votes in Tripura. In February, ahead of the polls, Mamata Banerjee campaigned for two consecutive days in Tripura with her nephew and TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee. She even held a nearly 5-kilometer-long padayatra in Agartala.
Speaking at a rally following the padayatra, the TMC chief highlighted the Trinamool Congress model of ‘development’ in Bengal in an attempt to impress voters in Tripura, claiming that her party was the only alternative if the people of the northeastern state wanted jobs, development, and peace.
