New Delhi: The Congress-Left alliance could have won the Tripura elections by a good margin had it not been for the entry of Pradyot Debbarma’s TIPRA Motha party, an analysis of the vote share shows.
On the face of it, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) combine has won 33 seats — winning a clear majority in the House of 60. The TIPRA Motha won 13 of the 42 seats it contested, with 26 of these seats going to the BJP and three to the Congress-Left alliance.
However, a deeper analysis shows that the victory margin of the BJP+ over Left-Congress in 18 seats is less than the vote share of TIPRA Motha in those seats.
According to the above tally, the outcome of the Tripura election could have been very different had the former Congress President Pradyot Debbarma decided not to fight the elections separately. For a better understanding, currently Congress-Left has won 14 seats of the 60 it contested from, and adding these 18 seats would have then resulted in a clean majority with the BJP essentially getting reduced to just 14 seats in this scenario.
TIPRA Motha was formed in 2019, following the exit of Debbarma, Tripura royal scion from the Congress. TIPRA has a strong hold over the Tribal belt of the state, accounting for a total of 20 seats.
According to author and political analyst Dr. Prasenjit Biswas, there was strong anti-incumbency against the BJP government. “The party managed to ride over this because of the division of votes”, he told ThePrint.
“There should have been a broader Opposition unity. That didn’t happen because the negotiations weren’t proper. (Anti-BJP) votes were divided between TIPRA Motha and the Left-Congress blocks, which gave the BJP an advantage,” said Biswas.
According to him, the Left and the Congress could have better negotiated with TIPRA Motha and its demand for a separate Tipraland since it didn’t need to be dealt with immediately, instead of leaving it open ended. “To some extent, ethnic polarisation has also helped the BJP, wherever they have won by a small margin,” he added.
Dr Biswas said this loss is a big lesson for the Opposition in the importance of being united. However, he added that a “very strong opposition” has emerged and “post elections there will be unity in them.”
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How BJP could have lost 24 more seats
According to the ECI, nine of the aforementioned 18 seats that the BJP bagged were previously won by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in the 2018 elections.
The BJP is the incumbent in the remaining nine of the 18 seats where the Left-Congress alliance stood second. These seats include Amarpur, Surma, Panisagar, Majlishpur, Kamalpur, Pabiachhara, Teliamura, Khayerpur and Pecharthal.
In Jolaibari, the BJP’s ally IPFT won its sole seat by a margin of nearly 500 votes, defeating the Left-Congress combine candidate. The TIPRA Motha candidate secured over 8,500 votes — which is more than the margin of victory.
Similarly, in the Chandipur seat, BJP’s Tinku Roy won by a margin of 577 votes, defeating the Left-Congress candidate Krishnendu Choudhury. However, TIPRA Motha’s Ranjan Singha won over 5,000 votes.
The results in seven other seats apart from Jolaibari and Chandipur, which were CPI (M) bastions in 2018, were no different. In Dhanpur, Manu, Bagbassa, Kamalasagar, Bishalgarh, Kakraban-Salgarh and Rajnagar, the Congress-Left candidates stood second, while the votes received by TIPRA Motha candidates were more than that of the BJP’s victory margin.
In Amarpur, winner Ranjit Das of the BJP has won by a margin of 4,500 votes, defeating the Congress-Left candidate Parimal Debnath. But TIPRA Motha’s Ashiram Reang bagged over 8,000 votes.
Left candidate Sadhan Kumar Chakma was a distant second in Pecharthal, where the BJP won by 8,000 votes. Hollywood Chakma of TIPRA Motha secured over 9,500.
However, TIPRA Motha is not the only party that has played a spoilsport. In six seats of the 26 mentioned earlier that went to the BJP, TIPRA Motha came second to the BJP, while Congress-Left alliance in third place acted as the ‘vote cutter’. Victory margin for the BJP candidates here was less than the votes polled in favour of Congress-Left candidates, coming third.
In Kalyanpur-Pramodenagar, the incumbent MLA Pinaki Das Chowdhury won by a huge margin of nearly 7,000 votes. She defeated Manihar Debbarma of TIPRA Motha by 6,500 votes. Congress-Left candidate Manindra Chandra Das was third by nearly 11,000 votes. A combined vote-share of TIPRA Motha and Congress-Left candidate was more than that of the BJP candidate.
With a margin of 2,500 votes, BJP candidate Bikash Debbarma in Krishnapur defeated TIPRA Motha’s Mahendra Debbarma. With over 8,000 votes, the Left-Congress candidate Swasti Debbarma stood third. The case is no different in four other seats, including Krishnapur, Bagma, Santirbazar, Mohanpur, where Tipra Motha is second and Left-Congress candidate is third
The Chawmanu seat is another instance where TIPRA Motha stood second and the Congress-Left candidate was third. Here, the BJP candidate, Sambhu Lal Chakma, won by a margin of nearly 3,000 votes defeating TIPRA Motha’s Hangsa Kumar Tripura. The Congress-Left candidate Jiban Mohan Trip bagged 7,400 votes, which was double the victory margin.
Also Read: With oppn votes split between TIPRA & Left-Congress, BJP wins 6 of 20 tribal seats in Tripura
Who is the vote cutter?
The Opposition, especially the Congress, seems to be aware of the fact that an alliance could have ended in a victory.
Following the result, Tripura Congress chief Birajit Sinha said the anti-BJP vote was divided, which resulted in their loss. “Because of TIPRA Motha we have lost,” Sinha said while speaking to ThePrint.
Asked whether results could have been different had they fought with TIPRA Motha, Sinha said, “One thousand per cent our government could have been formed.”
Many parties, including the ruling BJP, have called TIPRA Motha the vote cutter in the past. No less than Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, in a veiled attack during a rally in Ambassa had said: “The Opposition wants to divide the votes. Some small ‘vote-cutter’ parties are waiting for the election results, hoping to get their price.”
However, according to political analyst Dr Biswas, it was wrong to call TIPRA Motha a vote cutter. “Because they (Congress-Left and TIPRA Motha) didn’t cooperate, both their agenda suffered. That allegation is not true because TIPRA Motha has already performed well in the district council elections. The district council is, in fact, ruled by them. Therefore, they have their own vote base,” he said.
He added that “had the Opposition been united, that vote base could have been mobilised and the chemistry between the parties could have worked against the BJP.”
TIPRA Motha chief Debbarma has completely denied such allegations in the past as well.
During an interview when he was asked about the same, Debbarma instead attacked the Congress and the CPI(M). “Our strategy is for our own party, not for splitting or consolidating the votes of other parties. We have been called the BJP’s B-team, but as a past working president of the Congress, I know the Congress used to be the B-team of the CPI(M). They are now in the same team.”
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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