Since Sudip Roy Barman of the Congress won the Agartala seat in the crucial bypolls held last month, there has been a buzz in the political corridors of Tripura about a repeat of the West Bengal model of the Left-Congress alliance in the Northeastern state. This is due to Sudip’s comment on the need to bring the non-BJP parties together against the ruling BJP. The former state Congress president alleged that democracy wasn’t functioning well in Tripura under the saffron rule. Significantly, this statement was welcomed by the CPI(M).
With the rise of the BJP in Tripura in the last decade, both the Congress and the CPI(M) have seen erosion in their voter bases. The saffron party has become their common enemy. To fight the BJP, they are slowly trying to come together, despite knowing that any kind of alliance between them is going to be a risky proposition. There are high chances that many of their core voters may disapprove of the alliance as the Communists and Congress have been rivals in the state’s electoral battlefield since the 1951 Lok Sabha elections. Animosity still exists between the core voters of the two parties.
Then why is the Congress and the CPI(M) slowly moving closer to each other, although the Left-Congress alliance model didn’t work in West Bengal? To get the hindsight of this development, one has to study the results of the recent bypolls.
The study of voting percentages clearly indicates that there has been a transfer of a section of Left votes to the Congress in Town Bardowali and Agartala — that’s the reason why the BJP is seeing some sort of “Left-Congress alliance” behind the party’s defeat in Agartala. Even in Town Bardowali, the BJP alleged that the Left transferred its votes to the Congress.
These two constituencies — Agartala and Town Bardowali — have always been known for electing non-Left candidates. The Left has been a weak player in these two constituencies — and this seems to be one of the reasons for a section of Left voters voting for the Congress. Then why did the Congress lose Town Bardowali?
If one studies the details given in the above tables, one would find that the Congress’ votes, which almost shifted to the BJP in 2018, started to return to the grand old party in 2019 — but this didn’t affect the saffron party much as it gained more votes from the Left that same year. In the bypolls too, this pattern was almost repeated. In Agartala, the Congress was able to gain a section of BJP votes in addition to that of Left votes. Thus it emerged victorious, although Congress’ votes are less than it got in 2013. In Town Bardowali, the grand old party seems to have got the additional votes mostly from the Left but not from the BJP — a possible reason for its failure to wrest its old bastion. The BJP was able to almost retain its 2019 vote share here — the most possible reason seems to be the candidature of chief minister Manik Saha himself.
Interestingly, while discussing the analysis of the results, a section of the media ignored the Left while highlighting the TMC, an opposition party that exists mostly on news stories. Does that mean the main opposition Left is dead? No. The Jubarajanagar results indicate that Left also has its presence on the ground.
True that the Left lost its Jubarajnagar bastion, but the analysis of the data of the above table suggests that the saffron party already had breached the red bastion in 2019 polls when it received the massive 60 percent votes. In comparison to the 2019 polls, this time the Left was able to recover a section of its votes from the BJP. Some Congress votes, which the BJP had gained in 2018, returned to the grand old party in 2019. But in the bypolls, a large section of these Congress votes seems to have gone to the Left. The contest here was bipolar between the BJP and the Left — and this may explain why most Congress votes went to the Left. As for the Surma (SC) seat, the Congress didn’t contest there and indirectly supported Pradyot Barman’s TIPRA Motha, which came second to the BJP.
In the 2018 Assembly elections, the Congress voters, more particularly non-Left voters, almost shifted en masse to the BJP to defeat the Left. In these bypolls, it was observed that the non-BJP voters appeared to support the strongest opponent to the saffron party, constituency-wise. A similar tendency was perceptible during the Left Front era when the non-communist voters searched for an alternative.
It is based on this observation that the CPI(M) and the Congress are giving signs of coming together. The two parties are, however, aware that burying the past might not be that easy. However, there remains another option — formation of a strategic alliance where the two parties may indirectly support the strongest opponent against the BJP, constituency-wise.
Sagarneel Sinha is a political commentator. He tweets @SagarneelSinha. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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