Poll officials carry a box containing EVMs as a security man keeps vigil in Agartala on Sunday. (PTI)

Agartala, Feb. 3: Campaign for the February 14 Tripura Assembly elections is steadily picking up with poll graffiti, colourful festoons and flags adorning streets of Agartala town and rural areas with exceptions in the 20 seats reserved for indigenous communities where electioneering has been subdued.

Electioneering has gained momentum with leaders from outside the state hitting the campaign trail. Veteran CPM leader and leader of the Opposition in the Bengal Assembly, Surjya Kanta Mishra, started his campaign yesterday in Kailasahar Assembly seat in Unakoti district.

Addressing a well-attended rally, Mishra said the 7th Left Front government will be constituted in Tripura within a few days. “There has been change in Bengal but the scared people there now regret this and want change of change,” said Mishra.

CPM office secretary Haripada Das said in the run-up to the polls, other senior leaders like Gautam Deb, Biman Bose and Abdur Rezzaq Mollah from Bengal, and Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury and Brinda Karat from the party’s national leadership will arrive to take part in the campaign.

The interesting thing about the chief minister’s campaign is that he is interspersing his meetings in other parts of the state with regular meetings and rallies in his own constituency in Dhanpur under Sonamura subdivision of Sipahijala district.

“We are not worried about the CPM’s campaign; they are always systematic and methodical but you will see the way we take the state by storm after Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh arrive here to address rallies,” said PCC president Sudip Roy Barman. He added that a host of “popular Congress leaders” from Bengal, would also join the campaign.

The significant difference between the two parties’ campaigns is that the Left Front has been putting more stress on small, homely gatherings, alongside shows of strength in public rallies, whereas the Congress is restricting its campaign more through roadside meetings and big mass rallies.

An interesting side of the Congress’s campaign is that Maharjaja Pradyot Bikram Kishore, Tripura’s royal scion, has been actively campaigning for the party candidates, especially in interior areas and constituencies dominated by indigenous people. Yesterday, he held three meetings in Dhalai district’s Chhawmanu (ST), Karamcherra (ST) and Ambassa (ST) constituencies, receiving encouraging response from the audience everywhere.

Besides, the BJP, which is contesting 52 seats, will invite stalwarts such as Sushma Swaraj and Rajnath Singh to campaign for the pary. . This was revealed in a meet-the-press programme yesterday in Agartala Press Club.