BJP to take out rath yatra in Tripura ahead of assembly polls from Jan 1

The ruling BJP in Tripura will organise a rath yatra' across the state from the first of January, as the saffron party gears up for the assembly polls due early next year, a party leader said on Monday.

A three-member committee headed by Information and Cultural Affairs Minister Sushanta Chowdhury has been constituted to oversee preparations for the yatra, he said.

Election to the 60-member Tripura Assembly is due to be held in February.

One yatra will set out from North Tripura district while another from South Tripura district, BJP media in-charge Sunit Sarkar said.

The party's chief spokesperson, Subarta Chakraborty, said the objective of the yatra is to seek the blessings of people in the run-up to the polls.

We do believe that people will join the rath yatra' to show solidarity towards the party that has addressed their basic needs, he said.

For the first time, a political party will organise such a yatra in the northeastern state ahead of an election, party sources claimed.

During the 2018 assembly polls, the BJP had conducted several road shows, with a number of Union ministers leading those.

Meanwhile, the saffron party's mega outreach programme - Prati Ghare Shushan' - concluded on Sunday.

BJP national general secretary B L Sontosh, who is in the poll-bound state, held the party's election management committee meeting on Sunday evening to review its preparedness for the assembly election.

Senior party leaders attended the meeting, the sources added.