Tripura's first election as a full state
What happened
Congress held onto power in Tripura's first election held after it became a full state.
The Indian National Congress won 41 of the 60 seats.
That left it 10 seats clear of a majority.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) finished second with 16 seats.
What changed
Even with Congress still in charge, a good number of seats changed hands underneath it.
Across the state, 13 of the 60 constituencies compared flipped to a different party.
The single biggest shift sent 8 seats from the INC to the CPM.
Congress's own seat count still grew, from 27 seats to 41.
Notable numbers
A few numbers from that election stand out.
The tightest race was in Isuanchandranagar, Tripura, decided by a margin — how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second — of just 21 votes.
Turnout — the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot — peaked in Kalyanpur, Tripura, at 82.9%.
The largest electorate was in Kunjaban, Tripura, where 20,929 people were registered to vote.
The most crowded ballot was in Deochhera, Tripura, where 8 candidates stood.
The backdrop
This was the first election held after Tripura became a full state of India.
Tripura became a Union Territory without a legislature in November 1956, gained an elected ministry in July 1963, and became a full Indian state on 21 January 1972 under the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971, together with Manipur and Meghalaya. Its 1972 Vidhan Sabha election was the first held under full statehood.
The assembly itself was larger this time, up from 30 seats to 60.