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Journalism of Courage
Hours after the Tripura Assembly election results were announced, the Left Front and the Congress, which had a pre-poll seat-sharing agreement to collectively take on the BJP, were still in shock.
Much hype around the ‘first-ever’ partnership between these two former rivals in Tripura was centred on the claim that they had come together to defeat the BJP and “restore democracy and rule of Constitution” in the state. But together, the CPI(M) managed to get 11 seats while Congress got three.
The results show an upward trend for the Congress, which had drawn a blank in 2018, and managed to secure one seat in 2022 when Sudip Roy Barman, who had earlier quit the Congress to join the BJP, returned to the party and won a by-election.
But for the CPI(M), the results have been gloomy to say the least, as the party’s tally of 16 MLAs in 2018 fell to 11 this year. The CPI(M)’s vote share also suffered a drastic fall, as the party slumped to 24.62 per cent votes from 42.22 per cent in 2018. Meanwhile, the Congress’s vote share went up from below 2 per cent in 2018 to 8.56 per cent in 2023.
Political experts feel while the Left vote share helped bolster Congress’s prospects, the Congress voters didn’t “transfer” their votes to the Left in equal measure. On its part, the Left Front has said the BJP has secured a majority with a small margin of seats, and added that huge amounts of money was pumped in to influence the outcome.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Tripura Left Front convener and senior CPI(M) leader Narayan Kar said the common people, especially the poor and the tribals, were allegedly intimidated and influenced by huge amounts of money before the elections. He claimed while the urban middle class population, who are not traditional Left voters, have cast their mandate for the opposition Left-Congress partnership, the rural poor and the tribals have not, in many cases.
Asked why the Left has lost acceptance among tribals, among whom the Left had launched its political journey in Tripura towards the fag end of the royal regime in the early 1940s, Kar said TIPRA Motha, led by the Tripura royal scion Pradyot Deb Barma, had adversely affected CPI(M)’s prospects, as in many seats, tribal voters who were previously Left loyalists, voted for TIPRA Motha and paved the way for a BJP victory.
The Communist party leader also alleged intimidation and violence during counting hours today, especially in Belonia and Hrishyamukh Assembly constituencies of south Tripura, where counting agents and even a candidate were assaulted while counting was still going on.
A statement issued by the CPI(M) state committee this evening said the BJP misused the administration in many ways and used the image of the PM and the central government to gain an edge in this election.
Whilst accepting the public mandate, the CPI(M) said it would continue its movement in the interest of the public, the state and the nation, to “restore democracy” and the right of working class people to live and work.
The CPI(M) has, however, not blamed the Congress over vote transfer, and said, “We shall review what happened… It is premature to comment if votes were transferred or not. Our comrades worked for them (Congress) and vice versa. We shall review and analyse the results. In future, we shall continue our work to stand with the people.”
The Congress, on the other hand, appeared clueless about what went wrong, and said it will “review” the results to try find out what shortcomings limited the Left-Congress partnership from securing a majority and forming the government.
“Our expectation was that the Left and the Congress would easily form a government. It didn’t happen. Somewhere or the other, some issues might have been there… We shall try to analyse and find out where we went wrong, and where we had weaknesses,” senior Congress leader, former minister and MLA Sudip Roy Barman, who won from his home turf Agartala, told The Indian Express.
He claimed the Congress’s seat-sharing partnership with the Left Front was well-taken by the people and it was not the reason their combine did not succeed.
“People were happy at the partnership. We might have had some lacunae on our side in executing it. We shall examine to find out what these were,” he said.
Roy Barman also feels votes were “transferred” by both the Congress and the Left, despite the BJP, during the campaign, repeatedly claiming it was not going to happen, especially given the history of violence between the former rivals, where sitting MLAs, ministers and hundreds of party workers were killed.
“I believe votes were transferred, but somewhere or the other, there may have been some organisational failure. It could be anything. I don’t want to pass any comment at this point. We shall introspect, reach a conclusion. Only then can we comment,” Roy Barman said.
Among the issues where fingers have been pointed at the Congress is the unexplained absence of senior central leaders like the Gandhis — Rahul, Priyanka and Sonia — and the party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, especially since Rahul, Mukul Wasnik and Salman Khurshid campaigned in the Meghalaya polls.
Roy Barman declined to comment on the matter, saying, “Both the Left and the Congress will sit together, involve all candidates and leaders to introspect and take stock of why our candidates lost by narrow margins in many seats.”
Both the CPI(M) and the Congress have said they will play the role of a constructive opposition in the Assembly, although with 13 MLAs, the TIPRA Motha has emerged as the second-largest party in the new House.
