Complexity of Congress-CPIM alliance and Tipra Matha's new strategy to attract Bengali votes
Jayanta Debnath
December 13, 2022, 04:45:00
If everything goes well, the Tripura assembly election date may be announced by the second week of January 2023. Elections may be held by the second or third week of February 2023. And the result can be declared by the first week of March. The new cabinet members are to be sworn in before March 18, 2023. However, even though the date of the election has not yet been announced, massive political activities have been started by all the political parties at the party level. At the moment Tipra Matha is leading in the public relations politics in the hills and the ruling BJP is ahead in the plains. However, the main opposition party CPIM is not far behind in any case. CPIM is also going for mass campaign and reaching the people through social media and door-to-door leaflets.
Besides, Congress is not sitting at home. Already Congress ticket aspirants have started door-to-door PR campaign. Many people who had defected to the BJP before the last 2018 assembly polls have slowly started returning to the Congress. Many have already returned. Similarly, many leaders who were sitting in the house of CPIM have started coming out. In general, no political party is sitting at home. Everyone is eager to defeat BJP. Pradyot Bikram, Manik Sarkar, Jitendra Chowdhury, Sudip Roy Barman and Birjit Sinha have only one goal to keep the BJP out of power by any means. Hence, the most interesting agenda of coming 2023 Tripura Assembly polls is the vote reconciliation among the opposition political parties.
But in the end, whether there will be any agreement or affinity or electoral alliance between the opposition before the vote, is the big question for everyone today. And even if there is an agreement between the opposition parties in the end, what will be the formula is also a big question. Because, Tipra Matha has already announced that they will not agree to fight polls in alliance with anyone if their demand for Greater Tipra Land is not met. And they know very well that their demand cannot be directly accepted by any political party. But BJP's attempt to strike a deal for votes with Tipra Matha is still going on secretly.
The BJP's popularity in Tripura is such that their policy makers in Delhi want an alliance with Tipra Matha anyway. In these case, if the chief minister's post at stake, there may be an alliance between BJP and Tipra Matha at the end.
Therefore, it is natural to say that even if there is an alliance between the opposition before the polls, it is doubtful whether Tipra will remain. If there is a voting alliance, it can only be possible between the Congress and the CPIM. Because - for the time being, unless the situation is drastically changed, it is clear that Tipra Matha is not going to join the Congress and CPIM. In the end there may only be a Congress alliance with the CPIM or in some cases a seat adjustment. Because many senior leaders of the two parties are not in favor of the direct alliance.
On the other hand, even if there is an alliance, the Congress-CPIM alliance shape will be in a very critical situation. Let's say Congress and CPIM form a pre-poll alliance. But how will the seats be distributed? Take the case of Dharmanagar sub-division. There are 4 assembly constituencies in this subdivision namely Dharmanagar, Juvrajnagar, Kurti-Kadamtala and Bagpasha. In this case, Bagbasa, Kurti-Kadamatla have CPIM's winning MLAs. CPIM will definitely not leave the seat to Congress here. Even Juvrajnagar was a seat won by CPIM. This seat was won by BJP a few days ago in the by-election. In the 2018 assembly polls, CPIM lost in Dharmanagar city, but CPIM got more than 14,000 votes. Congress got only 600 votes.
Why will the CPIM, which is second in Juvrajnagar and second in Dharmanagar, give up seats to Congress for alliance?
Similarly, why would the CPIM give the Panisagar and Kanchanpur seats to the Congress?
It is needless to say that there will be intense bargaining between the Congress and the CPIM on the sharing of several seats in Khowai, Seapahijala, South Tripura District, Gomati District in the same way.
Moreover, it is not the case that the Congress can win the seat just by giving up the seat to the CPI (M).
In the same way, CPIM's winning MLA in Kailasahar assembly constituency is Mobswar Ali. And Congress's candidate is the state Congress president Birjit Sinha himself.
Will the CPIM bypass its winning seat and concede it to give the ticket to Birjit Babu for the sake of alliance?
On the other hand Birajit Sinha is not very enthusiastic about sacrificing his seat for the sake of alliance with the CPI (M). So it goes without saying that there is a lot of complicated math involved in the future of this alliance.
But it is also difficult to say when exactly what will happen in politics. But still personally, I think there must be something of an early seat sharing agreement between Congress and CPIM. There may be an unannounced understanding between the two parties ( BJP+ Tipra Matha) even if there is no written or declared alliance due to various problems of the two parties. But it is also true - it will be difficult for the Congress and the CPIM to ensure the defeat of the BJP by completely excluding or abandoning each other. So both the Congress-CPIM parties will not go alone in this year's assembly elections. We will have to wait and see what the formula of that strategy will be. Because, CPIM state secretary Jitendra Chowdhury is repeatedly calling on the opposition to formalise the election alliance with the Congress. But his appeal for now is to join united fight against BJP's Bike Bahini and political terrorism. Jitendra Chowdhury's appeal on this issue is to the Congress as well as to Tipra Matha . Although Matha has made it clear that they will not make a pre-poll alliance with anyone if they do not accept the demands of Greater Tipra Land.
Similarly, Congress leader Sudip Roy Burman has also repeatedly expressed interest in an alliance with the CPIM. On the other hand, President Birjit Singh expressed reluctance. Their high command might give importance to Sudip Babu's proposal because Birjit Babu became state president for the second time but could not show any success in the polls.
But if both the parties come together, Congress is likely to suffer because hardcore Congress members will never accept CPIM and Congress voters who voted for BJP in 2018, worked for BJP, and were thinking of returning to Congress will stay with BJP instead of returning to Congress. And if there is no alliance, then at least 15% of the 35% Congress voters who switched to BJP in 2018 will return to Congress. BJP will not be able to make up this number in any way. There is no doubt that the Tipra Matha on the hill will win more seats. BJP's ally IPFT won't get a single seat in hills. And if Tipra Matha gets 12-15 seats, there is no doubt that Pradyot Kishor will be the chief ministerial contender. Even then, BJP will fall into dual crises. The possibility of a hung assembly in Tripura this time is bright. But there are 70 to 80 days left for the election. It is difficult to predict in which direction the victory will turn if the voting is done correctly and peacefully. In this situation, although Pradyot wants to become a king, even if Maharaja Pradyot cannot become King, it can be said for sure that he is going to be King Maker. So he wants to take more and more Bengalis in his team and to bring bengalis closers,
Pradyot Bikram Kishore Manikya on December 11 2022 announced that Tipramatha is not only a tribal-based political party, but also a place for all Bengali, Christians, Muslims and all religions.
(Tripurainfo)