Tripura will go to the polls for the 60-member assembly on February 16, and counting will take place on March 2.
The main political parties are the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), the Left Front, the All India Trinamool Congress, and the Indian National Congress, besides regional parties like IPFT and INPT. Until 1977, the state was governed by the Indian National Congress. The Left Front was in power from 1978 to 1988, and then again from 1993 to 2018. During 1988–1993, the Congress and Tripura Upajati Juba Samiti were in a ruling coalition. In the 2013 Assembly elections, the Left Front won 50 out of 60 seats in the Assembly. In the 2014 general elections, both parliament seats in Tripura were won by the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The 2018 Assembly election resulted in a loss for the Left Front. The BJP won an overall majority in the state, resulting in the end of the Communist Party’s uninterrupted twenty-five-year rule. The BJP won 44 out of 60 seats in the Assembly by coalition with IPFT. The CPI (M) only got 16 seats, and the Indian National Congress lost by huge margins in all constituencies.
Politics makes strange bedfellows! The statement has once again proved right with a warring Congress and the CPI(M) in Kerala, they two have formed an electoral alliance in Tripura. Whether such unstable and unprincipled alliances will be supported by the voters is anybody’s guess.
The current election is interesting as the Trinamool has thrown all its weight behind wresting power from the hands of the BJP. They have an edge as a main challenger to the BJP, with the same language, Bengali, spoken in the state. The mindset of the people, long ruled by the left (for 25 years), is similar to that of Bengal, where the left ruled for 34 years before being dislodged by Mamata and her party. Trinamool has been cherry-picking smaller states like Goa and Tripura to justify their “All India” tag. In Goa, they faced a rout, and many of their lieutenants have deserted the party, exposing the inexperience of Trinamool as a political force beyond the borders of West Bengal. A win in Tripura, where the AITC is contesting from 28 seats, will salvage some of the lost glory of Mamata as a national leader and her party as a nationally relevant one to lead and take on Modi and the BJP in 2024. Trinamool’s efforts has its pitfalls foo! A loss will relegate CM Mamata into the darker cosmos of national politics, strengthening the BJP and Modi.
Kirit Pradyot Manikya Deb Barman Bahadur is the titular king of the Tripuri royal family. He is the current chairman of the Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance, also known as TIPRA Motha. He is known as “Bubagra,” or “King,” and is an active voice for the rights of Tripura’s indigenous people. He made his electoral debut in 2019 its first foray into electoral politics in the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) elections in 2021, which was marked by a sharp victory for Pradyot, and securing his party18 of the 28 seats.
Of the total 60 seats in the Tripura Assembly, the BJP is contesting 55 seats while its ally IPFT is contesting the remaining five seats. TIPRA Motha is contesting solo in 42 of the 60. There are around 20 tribally dominated seats, and these hold the key to power. CPI(M) will contest 43 seats, and its Left Front partners Forward Block, RSP and the CPI one each. The Congress will contest 13 seats, the Trinamool Congress is contesting 28 seats, and 58 independent candidates are in the fray.
With 2 Members in Lok Sabha and 1 in Rajya Sabha the State may be nationally irrelevant but has become interesting with Mamata jumping into the bandwagon.
Sampath Kumar
Intérpide Voix
In pic: tripureshwari, the local deity of Tripura!
