No vote is committed to a party forever, TIPRA Motha supporters may swing: Ex-Tripura CM Biplab Deb

“Every election has a different face. Motha got 8,000 plus votes last time. The CPI(M) got a lot of votes earlier but they didn’t get their own vote bank as well. It would be futile for any party to think that any vote will be committed to them forever. Motha hasn’t put up any candidate this time. But people will vote. It might swing,” the Rajya Sabha member said.

“Equation of voter composition doesn’t work in victory anymore. These are parameters people believed earlier but the 2018 Tripura Assembly elections showed how a landslide victory came the BJP’s way. The situation is in favour of the BJP,” he added.

TIPRA Motha, which was floated by royal scion turned politician Pradyot Kishore Manikya Debbarma in 2021 over the demand of Greater Tipraland, a proposed separate state for tribals of Tripura, contested its first-ever Assembly election in February this year and won 13 seats.

Though it lost in both Dhanpur and Boxanagar, it secured 8,671 and 3,010 votes, respectively. Union Minister of State for Social Empowerment and Justice Pratima Bhoumik won Dhanpur with a margin of 3,500 votes and CPI(M) won Boxanagar with 4,849 votes, a difference heavily influenced by Motha.

Deb said people have been helped by the state’s erstwhile royal family including when they opened the gates of the Ujjayanta Palace to refugees during the Bangladesh Liberation War.

“The Tripura royal family is one of the oldest dynasties of the country. There is no mention of atrocities of the royal family on people. Democracy is here now. Now royal people have become MPs and MLAs and are working for the people. Overall development of the tribal people can’t be done by anyone other than PM Modi, Home Minister Shah, and others,” Deb said.

Citing the recent meeting between Shah and Pradyot Kishore that led to much speculation in the state’s political landscape, Deb said it is only after the BJP came to power at the Centre that leaders from Northeast India can go and directly meet them without much ado.

“The BJP is at the Centre. The CPI(M) and Congress are nowhere near it. If any problem can be solved, we alone can do it. He (Pradyot) met the home minister a few days ago. I’m sure he considers which way he would like to go to the central government – directly or through the Congress high command or through the CPIM politburo,” Deb remarked, hinting that Motha is closer to the BJP than it is to the other Opposition parties despite apparent appearances.

Asked if he believes TIPRA Motha would eventually side with the BJP in the September 5 Assembly bypolls, Deb said Motha is a separate political party and it can’t be said which side it would sway.

Deb also presented his account of performance during his tenure as the Rajya Sabha MP since September last year and said he granted Rs. 3.39 crore from the MPLAD funds for 10 projects including connectivity, community halls, infrastructure etc.

The Rajya Sabha member also said he raised 17 questions, including a starred and 16 unstarred questions in Parliament, one Private Members Bill on compulsory teaching on teaching of environment in schools, and participated in discussions on a wide array of subjects ranging from ease of doing business to Artificial Intelligence.

Deb, who spearheaded the BJP’s campaign in Tripura and became the chief minister of the first-ever BJP-led government in the state in 2018, was unceremoniously dropped in 2021 for unexplained reasons. He was succeeded by his once-close aide and former BJP state president Dr Manik Saha. Deb was later appointed Rajya Sabha MP from Tripura, a post which Saha earlier held briefly.