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The Left's most reliable bastion in India has fallen. Tiny Tripura, ruled by the CPI(M)-led Left Front since 1993, has gone to the BJP-IPFT alliance.
"This is a historic win", said Bharatiya Janata Party General Secretary Ram Madhav . "We are not surprised because Tripura wanted a change."
So, the majority Bengali-speaking population would have voted decisively for the BJP to ensure the IPFT does not have its way.
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Since the BJP has strongly pitched for the Bengali Hindus’ quest for citizenship, even those coming to the country after 1971, through the amendment of the Citizenship Bill, the Bengali Hindus (comprising the majority in the state) seem to have reacted favourably to the ‘saffrons’.
The only issue that had them worried, was the party's alliance with the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT), but when the BJP leadership refused to endorse the separate ‘Twipraland’ demand, the Bengali Hindus – especially those seeking change – would have reckoned that giving the BJP a clear majority was a viable option .
"That bag has been wholly taken away, so we can say the alliance worked", said Tripura-based psephologist Jayanta Bhattacharya.
Tribals make up 28 percent of the state’s population but the tribal reserved seats constitute 33 percent of the total Assembly seats. Out of the 20 unreserved seats, tribal vote is important in at least eight. The BJP’s clean sweep in Agartala also proves that middle-class Bengalis, fed up with the lack of job creation by previous governments, also voted decisively against the Left.
However, the Left managed to hold on to the rural lower-caste Bengali vote. Poor farmers live in fear of the revival of a tribal insurgency and credit CM Manik Sarkar for tackling it in the last decade.
"Chief Minister Manik Sarkar can’t use use a smart phone. He refused to meet CEOs of top IT companies that we mobilised during the 2015 Tripura conclave just before Agartala became India's third gateway", says Saumen Sarkar, Vice President, Bank of America (IT solutions), who hails from Tripura.
Sarkar organised the one-day brainstorming session, that is, the Tripura Conclave, and his efforts to mobilise several top IT majors went to waste when the state government did not play ball.
Saumen Sarkar went on to debunk the old Left model of employment generation by creating government posts with funds from the Centre and endorsed BJP leader Sunil Deodhar’s stress on the Left's abject development record and the failure to meet the aspirations of more than 7 lakh unemployed people, as the main reason behind a BJP victory:
So how did the BJP emerge as party number one with 50 percent vote share from zero seats and one percent vote share in the 2013 Assembly elections?
The fact that the Congress vote share is down to one percent from over 30 percent in the 2013 elections proves Pranab Sarkar’s point. The alliance with IPFT drew a huge tribal vote to the saffron cause .
The Left has lost 4 percent of its vote share, down to 46 percent from 2013’s 50 percent . "That may make a huge difference in seats but the Left remains a strong political force", says Sitangshu Dey of Tripura's top daily Dainik Sangbad.
However, the Left’s defeat may not be good news for the BJP in a way. Dethroned Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar belongs to the Prakash Karat faction of the CPI(M), which pitches for Left unity and equi-distance from both BJP and Congress.
"His defeat will weaken the Karat faction and strengthen the Yechury group that is backed by the Bengal CPI(M) that wants an alliance with the Congress and other regional parties”, says CPI (M) party worker Suchetna Majumder, a Bengal Marxist activist.
The downside of the BJP-IPFT victory is that it could provide a fillip to the dying embers of tribal insurgency, which was crushed by the Manik Sarkar government through determined covert action including attacks on rebel bases in Bangladesh.
"We believe we will deliver on our promise of development for Tripura", said the probable chief minister-in-waiting, Biplab Deb. Deb, in Delhi until four years ago, is a hardcore Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh organiser who hails from Udaipur town in South Tripura.
"Putting him at the helm of a party, most of whose legislators are Congress deserters, sends a clear message. The RSS and BJP High Command will run Tripura by remote control", said Dey.
(The writer is a veteran BBC journalist and an author. He can be reached @SubirBhowmik. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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Published: 03 Mar 2018,04:09 PM IST