BJP Chose MLA Manoj Tigga Over The Sitting MP John Barla From Alipurduar

BJP announced the first list of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections and fielded Manoj Tigga, for Alipurduar Lok Sabha Constituency, reserved for the Scheduled Tribes. In 2019, John Barla was elected on the BJP ticket from this seat. However, Tigga”s nomination was not welcomed by Barla at a recent event at the Madarihat station organized by the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR). Barla after spotting Tigga on the dais, took a seat in the audience and refused to share the stage with the MLA.

In 2009, Tigga contested from the Alipurduar constituency and was defeated by Manohar Tirkey of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (India). Manoj Tigga is the Legislative Assembly representative for West Bengal”s Madarihat constituency. In 2016, Tigga contested from Madarihat on BJP ticket and defeated his nearest rival Padam Lama of All India Trinamool Congress by 22,308 votes.

Manoj Tigga is a primary school teacher by profession and has a graduation degree. Last year he was also appointed as the district president by the party. Following the election date announcement, Tigga has started an election campaign in his constituency.

Earlier the Kolkata Police filed an FIR against 12 BJP MLAs, party chief whip Manoj Tigga, for allegedly “insulting” the national anthem.

At present, BJP has MLAs from all the state assembly constituencies in Alipurduar. In the last elections, BJP candidate John Birla obtained 54.40 percent votes while AITC got 36.72 percent votes.

The literacy rate of the constituency is 64.68 percent. SC, ST, and Muslim voters are 30.9%, 25.5%, and 11.1% respectively. The percentage of rural and urban voters is 82.5% and 17.5% respectively. In the last elections, the voter turnout was 83.5% in the constituency.