A Sarkar Under Threat

A determined RSS-BJP onslaught has the Left and the chief minister worried for the first time in 25 years.

- Kaushik Deka

FOR MANIK SARKAR, chief minister of Tripura for the past 20 years, the 2018 assembly election is unlike any other he has fought in his four-decade-long political career. By his own admission, the prime challenger to the 25-year-long Left government in this election is not the traditional rival Congress but the BJP, a party which lost its deposit in 49 out of the 50 assembly seats it had contested in 2013. Five years later, the same BJP has made public its ambition in the slogan for the February 18 polls—‘Chalo Paltai’ (Let’s Change).

For the first time, the CPI(M), which prides itself on the organisational strength of its cadre, faces a serious electoral challenge from the BJP and RSS. The surge of saffron in this Left citadel has been sharp and significant—from a 1.54 per cent vote share in the 2013 assembly polls to a 14.7 per cent vote share in the local body polls two years later. From a few thousand members in 2013, the party now has 200,000 members in a state with a population of 3.6 million.

What has added muscle to the party’s campaign is the induction of eight Congress leaders, including five-time Agartala MLA Sudeep Roy Barman. This is in keeping with the BJP strategy of poaching prominent leaders from rival parties that has paid the party rich dividends in the assembly elections elsewhere, including in Assam and Manipur.