Is Tripura Voting for a Change?

For the first time in its electoral history, the tiny north-eastern state of Tripura is witnessing a fierce political contest between two opposing ideological forces – the Communists and the Hindu nationalists - as it goes to elect its new 60-member Assembly on February 18.

The pro-Hindu nationalist BJP and its Sangh parivar have unleashed an electioneering blitzkrieg to root out the Communist government that has been ruling Tripura since it re-captured power in 1993. The first Communist government was formed under the leadership of Nripen Chakraborty in 1978, which was in office till 1988, when the Congress-TUJS alliance forced it out of power.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah are spearheading the high-profile campaign – Chalo paltai (let’s change). Within just 10 days both Shah and Modi visited the state twice and addressed several mammoth rallies. Other top union ministers, including Home Mnister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also added lustre to the BJP campaign.

The incumbent Chief Minister, Manik Sarkar, who succeeded veteran tribal leader Dasharath Deb Barma in 1998, has had an unchallenged reign since then, expanding the political base of his party, the CPI(M), across the state.

In the 2013 assembly polls, the Left front had swept the poll with two-thirds majority, raising its seats up to 50 in two by-elections held in 2015 and 2016. The communists also captured all but one of the 20 reserved assembly seats in the tribal areas. The Congress bagged a solitary tribal seat and nine other general seats.

Besides, in the 2015 Tripura Tribal Autonomous Areas District Council (TTAADC) polls too, the CPI(M) led front wiped out all its rival tribal parties, securing all the 29 seats in the council, and thereby establishing its total domination of the political landscape, both in the plains and the uplands.

Sarkar is now seeking to return to power for the fifth consecutive term, even as the Congress, its principal political rival for decades, is grappling with an existential crisis in the state, following the advent of the BJP government at the Centre in 2014, and subsequent desertion of almost all the Congress MLAs, barring two of the 10 elected legislators. All of them joined first the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and later the BJP.

With the Congress virtually vacating the non-Left space, the BJP wasted no time filling in the political vacuum, positioning itself as the principal opposition to the ruling front. In fact, in the by-elections held during 2015-16 for the five seats, the BJP emerged as runners up in the four constituencies, suggesting the party’s growing following in the state.

A curious case of Congress – ‘Delhi me Dosti, aur Tripura me kusti’

Admitting that Congress was going through a rough weather, TPCC working president Pradyot Deb Burman asserted: “Make no mistake, we are not done yet! We are rebuilding our party from the scratch.” When asked why has the Congress decided to field so many candidates with a seeming diminished support base, he shots back: ”Why not? We are not going to vacate the field without a fight”. In fact, Deb Burman says, the party is contesting in 59 seats, the largest ever deployment of candidates in decades, and many of them are young, educated and professionals. “Let them feel the ground!” he insists.

Well, this exuberance is expected from the 40-years-‘young’ Congress leader whose family ruled over a much larger territory, including the present geographical area of Tripura through an uninterrupted reign of 184 kings. As an heir to this colossal legacy, the royal scion claims he is no pushover. “I will do what all I can to rebuild the party that my parents served for so long.”

The spirit is praiseworthy but that is not going to fetch his party votes for now. The problem with the Congress party is that, argues Prof Arunadoy Saha, who unsuccessfully contested in the 2014 parliamentary constituency from West Tripura on a Congress ticket, and is now a Modi admirer, “It always maintained an inexplicable policy in relations to the Left party. While the Pradesh Congress had been fighting the Left rule in Tripura, its central leadership was following a conciliatory policy toward the Left parties at the Centre to ensure continuation of the Congress rule in Delhi.”

Prof Saha further pointed out that many a time when the Pradesh Congress tried to raise certain problems related to the Left front government in the state, or factional troubles within the party, the central Congress leadership often left the issues unattended.

“This prolonged neglect of the state Pradesh Congress by its central leadership led to resentment, dissension and demoralisation in rank and file of the party,” he rued. And under these circumstances, how could Congress nourish the party and fight against the brute force of the left government, asks Saha.

Now that BJP has filled in the anti-Left space and political void, he believes, “the way people are responding to the saffron surge and charge, ‘the Manik era’ will come to an end in this election.”

The Left approach – peace, amity and development

Unfazed by BJP’s blazing electioneering, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar too is bracing for a robust fight. The left front has deployed its well-oiled organisational and political machinery, and called out its grassroots cadres to defend the ‘popular government’ and ensure its return for the eighth time.

Sarkar claimed that during the past two decades, his government had led a relentless war against extremist militancy until it succeeded to neutralise all this separatist groups and restore peace, communal harmony and political stability in the state. He does not miss to point it out that while several north-eastern states are still grappling with insurgency and political insecurity, Tripura has been able to weed out terror and remove the controversial Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA), 1958 from the state.

Having achieved these two crucial tasks – maintaining peace and political stability, the government has been paying attention to building social and economic infrastructure for ‘all round economic development and wellbeing’ of the people of Tripura. And if this process has to continue, he exhorted his party men and women, it is important to defeat all the disruptive forces, which are attempting to topple the Left front.

Not only that, Sarkar says the BJP has aligned with a party, which has links with extremists hiding in Bangladesh, which wants to divide the state and alter its territorial integrity. The Left front will not allow this to happen.

False peace and invisible development, says the BJP

Countering the claims of the ruling front government, the BJP says the incumbent government has failed in all the three tasks it boasts of: First, all this slogan of peace and amity is a façade; there is a simmering unrest among lakhs of educated and ‘out of school’ youth, who are searching for employment and economic avenues. “Where are the avenues? What has the chief minister been doing all these years? questioned Assam finance minister and BJP’s ‘blue-eyed boy’ in the northeast, Hemanta Biswa Sarma.

Secondly, talking about amity and the plight of the tribal people and their deplorable economic conditions, he claims that the Manik Sarkar government has completely alienated the tribal population of the state. The BJP has aligned with Indigenous Peoples Front of Twipra (IPFT) to work together for the socio-economic uplift of the tribal population in the tribal areas.

BJP also slammed the Left front for its total failure in building the economy of the state. It was also incapable of using the central funds for creating proper infrastructure to set up industries and local entrepreneurship. As a result, there has been little private investment in the state. “The idioms of the left have kept the private investment away from Tripura,” Jaitley told a gathering recently.

The Tribal question

All the three major national parties – the Congress, the Left and the BJP- have made it clear that they will not support any division of Tripura vis-a-vis a separate homeland (Twipraland) for the indigenous population of Tripura.

The IPFT, which has forged a pre-poll alliance with BJP, has been agitating for a ‘Twipra Homeland’ - comprising the territories under the administration of the TTAADC - since July last year. However, it has decided to keep the demand in abeyance for now, following an assurance from union Home minister Rajnath Singh that the ministry will set up soon a high-power committee to address all the socio-economic, cultural and linguistic questions raised by the indigenous people of the state.

When asked how would the IPFT explain the political stand of its major ally, the BJP, on the Twipraland issue to its supporters, the campaign manager Brajalal Deb Barma said that “We are very clear about it. Twipraland remains at the heart of our campaign. But at the same time, we also have to wait and see the committee report and its recommendations. We cannot ignore the political process.”

However, at the moment, he says, “All we want is this Left front to go!”