Buoyed by Tripura local polls victory, BJP says will come to power in Bengal, Kerala

Buoyed by its big win in local polls in Tripura, the BJP on Friday exuded confidence that it will come to power in West Bengal, once a Left bastion, and the Left-ruled Kerala in the same way it has in Tripura.

Senior party leader Ravi Shankar Prasad hailed the party's overwhelming win in the Tripura polls and noted that the state was ruled by the Left for over 25 years before the BJP threw it out of power in the 2018 assembly polls with a big win.

West Bengal was a Left bastion for decades and now the BJP is a major player in the state and will come to power there, he said, asserting the party will also rule Kerala.

The BJP fared poorly in Kerala in the recent Lok Sabha polls when it could not win a single seat. It, however, put up an impressive show in West Bengal, wining 18 of the 42 seats.

Prasad, also a Union minister, said the people of Tripura have shown their faith in the party's and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership.

The BJP won 5,916 of the state's 6,111 'gram panchayat' seats, 411 of 419 'panchayat samiti' seats and 114 of 116 'zila parishad' seats in the local polls.