The BJP swept the Tripura civic polls by winning 329 of the total 334 sets in an election that was closely followed across the country. Out of the 222 seats that went to the polls, the BJP won 217 seats. It was earlier declared a winner on 112 uncontested seats.
The remaining five seats were won by the CPI-M (3) and one each by the TMC and a local outfit, Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance.
The BJP had fielded candidates in all the 334 seats of Agartala Municipal Corporation, 13 municipal bodies and six nagar panchayats. All the 51 wards in the Agartala Municipal Corporation were won by the BJP.
The election was seen as a bellwether for the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC which contested the election with all the power capital at its disposal. De facto TMC chief Abhishek Banerjee along-with political manager Prashant Kishor were deeply involved in the election which also included poaching established Congress leaders like Sushmita Dev who became the party’s face on the ground during the polls. Dev’s father, late Santosh Mohan Dev was instrumental in installing the Congress-led government in Tripura in 1988. He had also won two (1989 and 1991) Lok Sabha polls from the state.
The Trinamool Congress, which is taking steps to establish itself as a national party, was counting on a positive result from Tripura to give it an impetus in other states like Goa and Chhattisgarh.
The TMC had also gone to the Supreme Court, with its 16 Members of Parliament (MPs) sitting on a dharna outside the office of Home Minister Amit Shah on 22 November, to raise their protest against the alleged political violence against their workers in Tripura.
The TMC however is likely to draw solace from the fact that in many seats, it emerged as the main opposition while pushing the CPM to the third position. Abhishek Banerjee, in a tweet, while accepting the defeat said, “It is exceptional for a party beginning with negligible presence to successfully contest municipal elections and emerge as the PRINCIPAL OPPOSITION in the state with more than 20% vote share.”
BJP National General Secretary, Bl Santosh, termed the efforts put by the TMC in the elections as tantrums. “People of Tripura are showing the @AITCofficial the rightful place … The Dustbin … None of the tantrums got them any results. @BJP4Tripura set to create history by winning more than 80% seats in urban local bodies . Set to win all municipalities,” Santosh tweeted.
On many seats, the combined votes of Trinamool, Congress, CPM and CPI (M) candidates were more than the votes polled by victorious BJP candidates, thereby indicating that if the opposition parties had contested the elections in an alliance, the overall result would not have been so dismal for them, a lesson that perhaps might become important in the coming months.
Prashant Kishor, whose efforts to join the Congress did not bear fruit, had employed considerable resources in the state through his political consulting firm, I-PAC for reaping electoral benefits for the TMC so that it could add to the narrative that the Mamata Banerjee led TMC could replace the Congress as the primary opposition party to take the BJP in the 2024 general elections. This defeat is likely to come as an eye opener for Banerjee whose national political ambitions, according to political observers, are being given a premature push by Kishor.
The elections and the counting were held on 25 November and 28 November respectively under unprecedented three-tier security arrangements with Central paramilitary forces being deployed.
