In Tripura, performance of CPIM is nill in 2023 Assembly Elections in the seats reserved for the tribals. In terms of simple arithmetic, five years ago it was two. But this time it’s become zero! Party of tribal leaders like Dashrath Debbarma, Sudhanwa Debbarma Tripura CPIM have to review its performance at least in the tribal base. The CPIM have to sit anew to find the direction for the coming days and have to plan a strategy.
Tribal vote has always played a major role in Tripura’s political equation. At one time when the Left was in power, Manik Sarkar’s party managed to create a monopoly in the Autonomous Councils (ADCs) of the tribal areas.
But five years ago, the BJP increased its influence in the Janjati area by forming an alliance with the IPFT in the election to defeat the Left.
The saffron camp won 18 of the 20 seats reserved for the Janjatis. The remaining two went to the CPIM in 2018.
In this year’s assembly polls, the BJP-IPFT got 7 out of those 20 seats. Pradyot Kishore Manikya’s Tipra Motha won the remaining 13. Apart from fighting with BJP, the CPIM has to rethink what the role of the party will be in the mind and what should be done to win back the minds of the tribals as a whole.
The full results of the assembly elections are yet to be reviewed by the CPIM. Initial reports suggest that the CPIM leadership has seen a good fight between the Left and the Congress with the BJP alliance in several constituencies.
At least that’s what the polling numbers say. For example, Jolaibari seat. In this only seat , the IPFT won this time and the winning MLA Shukla Charan Noatia also got a place in the new cabinet of the state.
The difference between the second-placed CPIM candidate and the winning candidate in that center is only 438 votes!
Motha candidate got 8 thousand 833 votes there. Again, in many of the seats that have won, the candidates of the Left or the Congress have fallen far behind.
For example, Motha candidate Paul Danshu won in Karamchara constituency with 52.73% votes. The CPM-backed Congress candidate came a distant third with 18.89% of the vote there.
In the words of a member of the Central Committee of the CPIM, “There has been a strange vote! Even those who have gets more, are not able to digest it. Those who didn’t get it, they don’t understand either!”
The general upswing in the state (around 21% votes) paved the way for the BJP to get a majority, the CPIM leadership initially felt.
The state leaders of the party agreed in the domestic discussion, keeping in mind the results of the ADC elections two years ago, they thought that Motha would do well in the Janjati area. But it could not be predicted that Motha will have such an influence in the mixed area as well.
Lok Sabha elections next year. The electoral history of Tripura says that at various times, people’s emotions have been in the forefront of the rise of power one by one, and then they fall.
According to many in the political camp, almost all such parties in the past have been led by mainstream leaders from separatist organizations.
An added advantage in Motha is the ‘loyalty’ of a large section of the people to the royal family.
How will CPIM deal with this situation? For the time being, the party leadership wants to see how close the mind is to the BJP, keeping the demand for a constitutional solution to Tipraland in front. The next strategy will depend on that.
