Agartala: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Tripura managed to scrape past the majority mark without any support from the ally IPFT.
The saffron party has won 32 seats, whereas the CPIM, which won 15 seats in the last elections, could only manage to win 11 seats.
Congress improved its strength from one to three. TIPRA motha, the party founded by royal scion Pradyot Kishore Debbarman, however, emerged as the show stealer by winning as many as 13 seats that might help the party become the principal opposition.
However, if the pre-poll understanding between the Left and Congress survives, it may also end up becoming the second-largest political formation after BJP-IPFT.
Meanwhile, Trinamool Congress has left no stone unturned to continue with its losing streak as the party drew a blank in the elections.
The BJP’s return to power should be seen as a crucial development for Tripura because the party’s 2018 win had been largely attributed to the transfer of Congress votes into its fold.
However, now it has become evident that the party has created a vote share of its own within the last five years and opposition parties have downplayed the strength of the BJP.
Although the BJP has won, a lot of the party’s strong contenders have been defeated.
Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma failed to retain his seat—Charilam in Sepahijala district where the BJP won with a record margin in 2018.
BJP state president Rajib Bhattacharjee lost to former Congress MLA Gopal Chandra Roy. In some of the key seats, the party managed to lift the tag of winner with a very thin margin.
Even Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha has won the seat with a very thin margin of a little over 1,200 votes. Several BJP MLAs could touch the victory with a difference of fewer than one thousand votes.
All these statistics have very well established the fact that even as the party has every reason to celebrate, their performance compared to the 2018 assembly elections only saw a downfall. The BJP in 2018 bagged over 43 per cent votes share while in 2023 it dipped to somewhere over 38 per cent.
Meanwhile, CPIM state secretary Jitendra Chowdhury emerged victorious from the Sabroom assembly constituency with a very slender margin of mere 396 votes. As expected, Congress MLA Sudip Roy Barman defeated BJP’s Papia Datta to retain his stronghold.
Soon after the elections, Tripura Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha told reporters that it was the work of the party workers which led the party to bag a majority.
“For the first time, Tripura has witnessed a triangular contest. Even after that, our party has succeeded to win the polls. I want to thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP National President JP Nadda for their relentless support. We shall continue to work keeping our slogan of ‘Ek Tripura Srestha Tripura’ at the top of our priority list,” said Dr Saha.
CPIM state secretary Jitendra Chowdhury said, “I want to thank all the electorates of the Sabroom assembly constituency. The Election Commission of India has played a crucial role in keeping the elections free and fair. I hope proper steps will be taken to keep the post-results situation peaceful.”
Congress MLA Sudip Roy Barman who had retained his seat with a gigantic margin of 9,000 votes has said that the party would introspect the lapses that had adversely affected the party’s electoral prospects. “We shall surely introspect what has impacted our party’s results,” said Barman.
TIPRA supremo Pradyot Kishore Debbarman, on the other hand, asserted that in the days to come the party would do better in future elections. “This is just the beginning of our party. More will come”, said Debbarman.
Also Read | 2023 Results Live: BJP leading in Tripura, Nagaland, Conrad’s NPP ahead in Meghalaya