BJP president J.P. Nadda will arrive on Sunday on a two-day visit to Tripura to kick-start the process of preparing the party for the election for the 60-member Tripura assembly which is still six months away.

A senior BJP leader on Saturday said that Nadda during his two-day tour on August 28-29, would hold more than half-a-dozen meetings and also address a huge public gathering at the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) headquarters at Khwumlung, 20 km from Agartala.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief would hold a series of meetings with state office bearers, leaders of frontal organisations, MLAs and members of TTAADC, ministers, BJP core committee members.

He would hold separate meetings with the tribal MLAs and leaders of the BJP-ally Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT).

“Besides gearing up the BJP organisation of all levels, priority of Nadda’s visit is to further strengthen the tribal front,” the BJP leader told IANS refusing to be named.

In a major setback for the ruling BJP in Tripura earlier this week, top tribal leader Hangsha Kumar Tripura joined the Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance, a major tribal-based opposition party.

Accompanied by around 6,500 tribals belonging to the BJP and its ally IPFT, Hangsha Kumar joined the TIPRA at a public rally held at Manikpur in northern Tripura.

Chief Minister Manik Saha and Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma held a key meeting in Guwahati on Wednesday with Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and central BJP leaders to chalk out the poll strategy.

Sources said that in the four-hour-long meeting, BJP general secretary B.L. Santosh, vice president Baijayant Jay Panda, and central observer for Tripura Phanindra Nath Sharma discussed the strategies for the election, expected to be held in February next year.

Sarma, BJP’s leading strategist and convener of the BJP-led North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), played a significant role in the 2018 Assembly elections in Tripura when the saffron party led alliance defeated the CPI-M led Left Front after 25 years.

BJP national general secretary and MP Dilip Saikia, the party’s central observers for Tripura Vinod Sonkar and Phanindra Nath Sharma are now camping in Tripura to make Nadda’s visit successful.