For the first time in 25 years, former four-time Tripura Chief Minister seven-term MLA and incumbent Leader of the Opposition Manik Sarkar is not contesting the Assembly elections, that too at a time when the Left is striving for a much-needed comeback after the crushing defeat of 2018. Speaking to The Indian Express at the party office in Melarmath - which has started seeing activity in recent months after going dormant when the Left Front lost power five years back - Sarkar, 74, says he wanted to give way for the younger generation and will focus now on the organizational and campaign-related activities of the CPI(M). “When the party fielded me earlier, I was young. Now there are other young leaders who are growing, they have to be given space, they have to be groomed. I should focus now on the whole state. I can't keep myself restricted to one seat; it would be self-centered.” However, Sarkar's decision to take the back seat is just one marker of the end of an era. It coincides with the Left Front dropping its hard stance of not tying up with any centrist party, and entering a seat-sharing partnership with the Congress to take on the BJP. Many believe the two developments are not entirely unconnected. Most of Sarkar’s former Cabinet colleagues like Badal Choudhury, Aghore Debbarma, Bhanulal Saha, Manik Dey and Sahid Choudhury do not figure in the candidate list as well. Sarkar smilingly dismisses the suggestion that the absence of a colossus such as him from the ballot would hurt the Left. “It might be the opposite. Most of our candidates are fresh blood; we have got 50-55% new faces in our candidate list. It’s a positive message to voters.” To further ease any hiccups due to this, especially the omission of veterans popular among the public, Sarkar says: “I am joining the campaign all day, introducing our new candidates.” On his former ministers who have been dropped too, Sarkar claims they are ailing. And adds that the CPI(M) Central Committee tried very hard to persuade him to change his mind and contest, before they finally okayed his decision. The new face of the CPI(M) in Tripura is largely seen to be another of Sarkar’s former Cabinet colleagues, plus ex-MP and current state party secretary, Jitendra Chaudhury, 65. From Sarkar's seat Dhanpur, which he has won five times in the past, the CPI(M) has fielded first-time contestant Kaushik Chanda, 42. On the elephant in the room – the tie-up with the Congress – Sarkar insists that it is “not an alliance”, but “a seat-sharing partnership”. The Left hardliner, who reiterated as recently as 2021 that they would never agree to such a “compromise”, says a “collective fight” is needed now due to the changed political scenario (the BJP's rise). However, he adds, the Left would never give up its ideological fight. The partnership was “the development of a phase”, and the Communist party’s class approach would not change, Sarkar says. “The Congress and the Left Front, particularly the CPI(M), are in the seat-sharing partnership to defeat the BJP, restore democracy, secularism, Constitution, and to ensure the right to food and work, among other issues. This situation has been necessitated due to the BJP’s fascism.” Sarkar says democracy has been “crushed” and Opposition parties “blockaded” under the BJP government. “It's a one-party dictatorship. Starvation, half-starvation, parents forced to sell children, are the reality in villages. In such a situation, we appealed to all secular forces to come together. If the Congress and CPI(M) want to join hands, why not?” However, while both sides have been trying to paint their new relationship as more of a necessity of the times rather than own need, it might be harder for voters to forget the long history of bloody rivalry between the Left Front and Congress, involving violence, murders, and accusations of being hand-in-gloves with insurgents. Asked if the new-found partners could put all this behind, Sarkar says: “Our supporters will speak for the Congress, and vice-a-versa in respective seats. This is the need of the time. It has started already.” He gives the example of a Congress leader who came to listen to his campaign address several days before the seat-sharing adjustment was even announced. However, pressed if voters too would be as understanding about their arrangement, Sarkar seems less sure. “I am not a fortune-teller,” he says. To the BJP going to the people with claims of development and of “ending violence”, Sarkar says the big challenge ahead is “to save democracy, restore civil liberties, and uphold the rights of people to vote freely and fearlessly”. A protégé of former CM and CPI(M) patriarch Nripen Chakraborty, Sarkar started with student politics, but rose fast, winning his first election in a bypoll for an Assembly seat in 1980 when still in his early 30s. In the 1993 elections, he had a big role to play as an organisation hand in the return of the Left to power under former CM Dasharath Dev. In 1998, Sarkar became the CM, and for 20 straight years till 2018, held the post, easily staving off the Congress, till the BJP came along. In the 2018 polls, while the other Left parties were washed out, the CPI(M) fell from 51 MLAs in 2013 to 16.
