Change of guard in Tripura may not help BJP as it staves off tribal party

AGARTALA: Seven months ago the BJP changed the Chief Minister in Tripura to give a positive message to the people and to overcome the anti-incumbency factor. However, the saffron party along with the other opposition parties is now facing a truly royal challenge from the Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance (TIPRA).

Some of the major issues and developments, which originated in 2022 including the rise of TIPRA, are expected to carry forward into the new year changing the political landscape of the election-bound northeastern state.

The TIPRA, headed by former royal scion Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barman, is spearheading the agitation demanding the elevation of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council into "Greater Tipraland State" for the tribals, who constitute one-third of the state's four million population.

The highly sensitive "Greater Tipraland State" demand of the TIPRA, locally known as Tipra Motha, "convinced" an unexpected number of tribals, creating a major electoral concern for the BJP, CPI-M, Congress and the Trinamool Congress ahead of the assembly elections, expected to be held in February.

The central leaders of the BJP had all suddenly removed Biplab Kumar Deb from the chief ministerial position on May 14, and appointed then-state president and Rajya Sabha member Manik Saha as his successor.

The central and state leaders of the party are yet to disclose the reasons behind the removal of Deb from the top post.

The change of chief minister, the sudden rise of TIPRA, Trinamool Congress' determined efforts to expand its organizational base in the BJP-ruled Tripura, political violence, despite agitations the rehabilitation of over 37,136 tribals who sheltered in Tripura after being displaced from Mizoram 25 years ago, switching sides by seven MLAs of the BJP and the IPFT to the Congress and the TIPRA dominated 2022 in the state and some of these would carry forward into the new year.

Even though all the major political parties including the ruling BJP, the opposition CPI-M, the Congress and the Trinamool Congress strongly opposed the TIPRA's "Greater Tipraland State" demand, all these parties are clandestinely trying to ally with the tribal-based party to get the support of the tribal voters, who are the deciding factor for securing an absolute majority in the elections.

In Tripura, out of the 60 Assembly seats, 20 seats are reserved for the tribals and 10 are reserved for the people belonging to Scheduled Caste communities.

As the BJP returned to power for the second consecutive term in Assam (2021) and Manipur (2022), the party is keen to maintain the same tempo in Tripura.

In Tripura, the BJP in alliance with the tribal-based party Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT), came to power in the 2018 assembly polls defeating the CPI-M-led Left parties, which were in power in the northeastern state for 35 years in two phases (1978-1988 and 1993-2018).

Political commentator Sekhar Datta said that the BJP government has been facing so many anti-incumbency factors that they are not in a comfortable position to face the electoral challenge.

"The central leaders of BJP do not want to take any chance to manage all the loopholes, shortcomings and failures of the government. That's why they started the electoral preparations in a big way and well in advance.

"Already Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the party's national president JP Nadda has visited the state and held a series of meetings with the state leaders to finalise the roadmap ahead of the election," Datta told IANS.

Though the central and state leaders of the party are yet to disclose the reasons behind the removal of Biplab Kumar Deb from the top post on May 14, according to political analysts it was an apparent attempt to counter anti-incumbency and any discontent within the organization in Tripura.

With the strategy of changing the Chief Minister ahead of polls going in its favour in Uttarakhand, the BJP's top leaders opted for a similar change in Tripura where the BJP had less than a two per cent vote share before the 2018 Assembly polls.

The BJP has changed five chief ministers since 2019, including in Gujarat and Karnataka.

On the trade and business front, Tripura exported natural rubber, pineapples, jackfruits, lemons and other fruits to Bangladesh, Nepal, Dubai, UAE and other countries, encouraging the farmers to expand their farming of such fruits.

The Tripura government pledged to make it a "drug-free state", while the law enforcement agencies arrested over two thousand people who were involved in the drug trade and sent them to jail.

"As the drug-related activities were reduced, 40 per cent atrocities on women and 10 per cent incidents of rape of young girls have decreased," claimed Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha.

After Tripura became the second largest natural rubber-producing state in the country after Kerala, currently cultivating natural rubber on 89,264 hectares of land and annually producing 93,371 tonnes of rubber worth Rs 1691 crore, the state government has adopted a policy to cultivate the precious Agar tree in the state in a big way.

There are more than 12 million Agar trees in the private sector in the state. (IANS)

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