Tripura Panchayat Polls Encore BJP

BJP won unopposed 96 percent of the Gram Panchayat and Panchayat Samiti seats and all the 18 Zilla Parishad seats

- Shilajit Kar Bhowmik

The 25-year old Left Front (LF) rule (out of which 20 years was under Manik Sarkar) was brought to an end and replaced by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with a thumping majority in alliance with Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT). For many, this came as a surprise as in the 2013 Assembly polls, the BJP’s vote share was a mere 1.53 percent. It was the BJP slogan of ‘chalo paltai’ (Come, let us change) which attracted the masses along with its alliance with the tribal group resulting in the landslide victory for BJP-IPFT alliance.

The inevitable had to happen. And soon after the Biplab Kumar Deb-led government was sworn in, there were mass resignations of office-bearers and members of the state’s Gram Panchayats, Panchayat Samitis and Zilla Parishads. Out of the total 6,111 three-tier Panchayat seats across 58 blocks in Tripura, 3,386 were vacated and this necessitated the conduct of by-elections.

The ruling BJP fielded candidates in all the vacant seats. CPI-(M), the main opposition party in Tripura, which was smarting from the historic defeat, could manage to field candidates in only 115 Gram Panchayat seats. IPFT, the coalition partner of the BJP fielded candidates for 63 Panchayat seats while the Congress fielded 120 candidates for the Gram Panchayats. Out of the overall 161 Panchayat Samiti seats, the CPI-(M) filed nominations for 8 seats, IPFT and Congress for six and eight seats respectively. As for the 18 Zilla Parishad seats, alas, the CPI-(M) could file nomination in only one seat. The IPFT had no candidate while Congress fielded six candidates.