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2018 Tripura Legislative Assembly election

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60 seats in the Tripura Legislative Assembly 31 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	91.38% ( 2.19 pp)
Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader Biplab Kumar Deb Manik Sarkar Pradyot Manikya Party BJP CPI(M) INC Alliance NDA LF UPA Leader since 2016 1998 2017 Leader's seat Banamalipur Dhanpur Did not contest Last election 1.54%, 0 seat 51.63%, 49 seats 36.53%, 10 seats Seats won 36 16 0 Seat change 36 33 10 Popular vote 1,025,673 1,043,640 42,100 Percentage 43.59% 44.35% 1.79% Swing 41.5 pp 5.51 pp 34.73 pp
Structure of the Tripura Legislative Assembly after the election
Chief Minister before election Manik Sarkar CPI(M) Elected Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb BJP

The 2018 Tripura Legislative Assembly election was held on 18 February for 59 of the state's 60 constituencies. The counting of votes took place on 3 March 2018. With 43.59% of the vote, the BJP secured a majority of seats (36) and subsequently formed the government with Biplab Kumar Deb as Chief Minister. The former governing Left Front alliance while receiving 44.35% of the vote secured only 16 seats.

Background

The term of the Tripura Legislative Assembly ended on 6 March 2018. Having governed Tripura since the 1998 election, the ruling Left Front alliance, under Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, sought re-election. Meanwhile, the region in general had been under the political control of the CPI(M) for 25 years prior to the election, leading to the region being dubbed a "red holdout" even when the 34-year uninterrupted rule of a CPI(M)-led alliance of Communist parties in West Bengal, the world's longest democratically elected Communist-led government, came to an end in 2011.

Their primary challengers came in the form of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which under the leadership of Narendra Modi was the governing party of India on a national level. The BJP is a Hindu nationalist party, whose policies directly oppose those of the Communists. However, the party claimed no seats, and a mere 1.5% of the vote, in the region's previous election. Once considered a political pariah in Northeast India due to its significant Christian tribal population & the party's association with the Sangh Parivar (which aimed to achieve Hindu unity by achieving a Hindi belt centric cultural homogenisation), the BJP following its victory in the 2014 general elections had swiflty formed a coalition of Northeast-centric smaller parties within its larger national coalition to challenge the Congress hold over the region. BJP's first breakthrough in Northeast India came with its victory in Assam's legislative assembly elections in 2016 over issues of Muslim appeasement & an alleged demographic change caused by uncontrolled illegal infiltration of Bengali Muslims from Bangladesh. The Bengali Hindu majority of Tripura, whose forefathers had migrated to the state during Partition of Bengal to escape persecution by Bengali Muslims in East Bengal & had been constantly bickering with the Kokborok-speaking native Tripuri population which had led to incidents of bloodshed like the Mandai massacre deeply resonated with BJP's campaign against illegal infiltration of Bangladeshi Muslims. BJP's alliance with the Tripuri outfit Indigenous People's Front of Tripura also drew Tripuri votes to itself.

BJP built up its organisation in the state by engineering defections from the Left Front & Trinamool Congress (which in turn was engineering defections from the Congress based on dissatisfaction of local cadre with the party's decision to ally with CPI(M) in 2016 West Bengal legislative assembly election, a notable defector being Sudip Ray Barman). Despite the relatively small size of the state, the election took on additional significance on a national level as it was an acid test to gauge the successes of the BJP ahead of the following year's general election, and a chance to strip the communists, the party's "primary ideological enemy", of its last stronghold.

Prior to the election, a number of workers of the BJP were murdered. The BJP alleged that the murders were committed by CPI(M) members, which the party denies.

Schedule

The Election Commission of India announced that the Legislative Assembly elections in Tripura would be held on 18 February 2018 and the results would be announced on 3 March 2018.

Electoral process changes

VVPAT-fitted EVMs was used in entire Tripura state in all polling stations in the 2018 elections, which was the first time that the entire state saw the implementation of VVPAT.

The election took place in a single phase on 18 February 2018 with 89.8% voter turnout. The results were announced on 3 March 2018.

Contesting parties

297 candidates registered to contest the election.

Party		Symbol	Alliance	Seats contested
	Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M))		Left Front	57
	Communist Party of India (CPI)		Left Front	1
	Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP)		Left Front	1
	All India Forward Bloc (AIFB)		Left Front	1
	Indian National Congress (INC)		UPA	59
	Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)		NDA	51
	Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT)		NDA	9
	Independents (IND)			27
	Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra (INPT)			15
	Tripura People's Party			7
	Amra Bangali			23
	All India Trinamool Congress (AITC)			24
	Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist)			5
	Tipraland State Party			9
	Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation			5
	North East India Development Party			1
	Pragatishil Amara Bangali Samaj			1
	I.P.F.T Tiprahaa (Independent)			1
Total				297

Campaign

The other major force in the election was the Indian National Congress, who had taken 36.5% of the popular vote in the region in 2013. They are also, on a wider scale, the largest force in opposing Modi and the BJP in parliament. As such, Rahul Gandhi, in his capacity as the party's leader, campaigned in the region. They were determined to prevent the BJP from seizing control on the region, as such an outcome would represent the "demise of the Left".

Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended his campaign by stating that Tripura deserves a diamond but in order to get it, it must let go of the manik ('semi-precious stone' in Bengali, also a word play on the name of incumbent CM Manik Sarkar) stuck to it.

Exit Polls

Results

The incumbent Left Front government was defeated after 25 years of office out of which Manik Sarkar served for about 20 years, with the Bharatiya Janata Party and Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura winning a large majority of seats. The Indian National Congress, which was the second largest party in the 2013 election, lost all its seats and most of its vote share.

Results by party

Parties and coalitions		Popular vote			Seats
		Votes	%	±pp	Contested	Won	+/−
	Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)	1,025,673	43.59%		51	36	36
	Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM)	993,605	42.22%		57	16	33
	Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT)	173,603	7.38%		9	8	8
	Indian National Congress (INC)	42,100	1.79%		59	0	10
	Communist Party of India (CPI)	19,352	0.82%		1	0	1
	Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP)	17,568	0.75%		1	0
	Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra (INPT)	16,940	0.72%		15	0
	All India Forward Bloc (AIFB)	13,115	0.56%		1	0
	All India Trinamool Congress (AITC)	6,989	0.3%		24	0
	Independents (IND)				25	0
	Other parties and coalitions					0
	None of the Above (NOTA)	24,220	1.03%
Total		2,353,246	100.00		60		±0
Valid votes		23,53,246	99.81
Invalid votes		4,474	0.19
Votes cast / turnout		23,57,720	91.38
Abstentions		2,22,393	8.62
Registered voters		25,80,113

Results by constituency

Highlights

No. of Constituencies

Electors

Performance of Women Candidates

Reactions

The BJP chose Biplab Kumar Deb to be the next Chief Minister. He said: "I am ready to take the responsibility. I will not run away from taking the responsibility. I have already been given a bigger responsibility, the party's state presidentship, which I have been fulfilling to the best of my ability. People responded favourably to our call 'Chalo Paltai' (let's change)." He claimed that having the same party in the central government and at the state level "helps in faster development." He further called for restraint in post-electoral violence: "We do not believe in the politics of vengeance and hatred, so we appeal to the people to maintain peace and calm." In addition he asserted that "the word development does not exist in the dictionary of the CPI-M. Our government will provide good governance and time-bound implementation of all developmental works."

Former Chief Minister of Kerala and senior CPI(M) leader V. S. Achuthanandan called for the party's leadership to ally with "secular forces" to defeat the Sangh Parivar: "The country is facing serious challenges. The Congress, which had ruled for decades in the post-independence period, has become weaker now. He supported party General Secretary Sitaram Yechury's call for an "understanding" with the INC as "a tactical move with secular forces was necessary." The party's provincial minister claimed that the BJP had "misused" money and power at the central government in winning the election and that the "challenge to the democracy and the national integrity." Another CPM figure M. V. Jayarajan, private secretary to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, claimed that the INC voters and leaders were moving towards the BJP and that the result should "not be viewed lightly and all the patriots in the country have the responsibility to check and isolate any effort of the communal forces gaining strength in the country. Politburo member M. A. Baby said that while the result was "unexpected", he did "respect the verdict of the people." He added: "However, there is a decline of 6-7 per cent vote share of the Left front. It's a concern...how the erosion has taken place and why this happened will be dispassionately examined by the party in Tripura and the national leadership."

Assam Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma derogatorily called for Manik Sarkar to be deported to Bangladesh following CPI(M)'s defeat after it was revealed that in spite of being in power for 20 years, Sarkar didn't own a home in his name. Sarma had also made the same comments during campaign, which represents the long-standing hatred & disdain of the Assamese Hindu population towards both Bengali Muslims & Bengali Hindus.

BJP's victory in a Communist-ruled state having a Bengali Hindu majority (who had been long stereotyped of being largely averse to Hindu right wing ideology) had possible implications for the political scenario of West Bengal, as it represented the rising acceptability of BJP to the Bengali Hindu society at the cost of the decline of Communist ideology.

On 5th March 2018, 2 days after declaration of the polling results, a collosal statue of Vladimir Lenin installed by the Communist government in 2013 at Belonia was razed to the ground using a bulldozer by a mob of jubilant BJP supporters. On the next day, a similar incident of BJP supporters demolishing another Lenin's statue was reported at Sabroom.

Charilam bypoll

Polling for the seat of Charilam was postponed to 12 March 2018 after the death of Communist Party of India (Marxist) incumbent candidate Ramendra Narayan Debbarma. The CPI(M) withdrew their candidate for the bypoll claiming that there was an increase in violence.

Despite this, the CPI(M) candidate continued to be present on the ballot paper, and subsequently lost their deposit.

See also

• Elections in India
• 2018 elections in India
• Tripura Legislative Assembly

References

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2. ^ "Tripura General Legislative Election 2018". Election Commission of India. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
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4. "Upcoming Elections in India". Retrieved 13 March 2017.
5. ^ "Conquest of Tripura". Archived from the original on 5 March 2018.
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11. "BJP worker hacked to death in poll-bound Tripura". Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
12. Saikia, Arunabh. "In poll-bound Tripura, the BJP accuses the Left of Kerala-style political killings". Retrieved 7 June 2018.
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17. Ali, Syed Sajjad (16 February 2018). "Cong. committed to Tripura". The Hindu – via www.thehindu.com.
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19. "It is time to throw away Manik and choose HIRA: PM Modi in Tripura". The Indian Express. 9 February 2018. Retrieved 28 May 2024.
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21. PTI (1 March 2018). "Tripura awaits election results as exit polls fail to give clear picture". Live Mint. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
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23. ^ "ECI". Election Commission of India.
24. "Gym instructor-turned-politician Biplab Kumar Deb likely to be Tripura CM - Rediff.com India News". www.rediff.com.
25. ^ "After Tripura Verdict, CPI(M) Says Defeat Should Be Viewed With Seriousness". PTI. 4 March 2018. Retrieved 12 July 2021.
26. "Defeat in Tripura should be viewed with seriousness: CPM". OnManorama.
27. ""Manik Sarkar Can Go To Bengal, Kerala Or Bangladesh," Says BJP's Himanta Biswa Sarma". NDTV.com. Retrieved 28 May 2024.
28. "Out of 'sarkar', Manik and wife live in CPM office". The Times of India. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved 28 May 2024.
29. "Assam Minister threatens to send Tripura CM to Bangladesh". www.business-standard.com. 29 December 2017. Retrieved 28 May 2024.
30. "Tripura BJP workers, supporters bulldoze Lenin statue amid cries of 'Bharat Mata ki jai'". The Indian Express. 6 March 2018. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
31. Deb Barman, Priyanka (6 March 2018). "Tripura: Two Lenin statues toppled Amid violence, BJP-CPM in blame game". Hindustan Times.
32. "BJP wins Tripura's Charilam assembly contested by Deputy CM after post-poll violence delayed counting - Latest News & Updates at Daily News & Analysis". 15 March 2018. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
33. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 March 2018. Retrieved 17 March 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
34. "Polling underway in Charilam Assembly seat in Tripura". India Today. Retrieved 7 June 2018.

External links

• Election Commission of India
• Full results by district

• 2018 State Assembly elections in India
• State Assembly elections in Tripura
• 12th Tripura Legislative Assembly