With Tripura heading towards State Assembly polls, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar filed nomination papers for the polls on Monday.
Tripura Chief Minister Sarkar will contest the State Assembly polls from the Dhanpur Assembly constituency in Sepahijala district.
Along with Chief Minister Sarkar, several other ruling Left Front candidates also filed nomination papers on Monday in across the State.
Red wave gripped Assembly polls-bound Tripura on Monday with the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) candidates filing nomination papers.
Sarkar on Monday submitted his nomination papers before the Returning Officer in presence of thousands of party supporters.
The Tripura CM will fight this Assembly polls for the fifth consecutive term.
Sarkar, who has been in office since 1998, has led the CPI-M to power for four consecutive terms.
Among the new faces of the CPI-M party contesting the ensuing Assembly polls, who also filed nomination papers on Monday included Islam Uddin and Abhijit Dey.
While Uddin will contest from 54 Kadamtala Kurti Assembly constituency, Dey will contest from 56 Dharmanagar Assembly constituency.
Tripura Social Welfare Minister and CPI-M leader Bijita Nath also filed her nomination papers on Monday.
Nath will contest from the 55 Bagpasha Assembly constituency.
The other CPI-M candidate who also filed nomination papers was Ramendra Ch Debnath.
Debnath filed his nomination papers for 57 Jubarajnagar Assembly constituency seat.
According to sources, Bijita Nath and Islam Uddin failed to submit their affidavits along with their nomination papers.
Tripura Minister Bijita was grilled by CBI sleuths in connection with the Rose Valley chit fund scam in 2017.
The Election Commission of India announced the poll dates for Assembly elections in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland recently.
The single-phase polls for the 60-member Tripura Assembly will be held on February 18, 2018. The counting will be conducted on March 3, 2018.
The final electoral rolls of Tripura were published on January 5 with names of 25,69,216 voters, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sriram Taranikanti had said.
Of the remaining 25,69,205 voters, 13,03,420 are males and 12,65,785 females.
Meanwhile, for the first time, the CPI-M has announced Manik Sarkar as the Chief Ministerial candidate beforehand.