The Left Front's long run ends
What happened
Bharatiya Janata Party won power in Tripura for the first time, a landslide that ended a long-serving Left Front government.
It won 36 of the 60 seats.
That left it 5 seats clear of a majority.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist), which had governed the state, fell to 16 seats.
The two parties were close in the vote — 43.6% against 42.2% — but far apart in seats.
The campaign
On 7 August 2017, Sudip Roy Barman, a long-serving Agartala MLA, and five other Trinamool Congress MLAs joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, an early defection that helped build the party's organisation in the state. Barman went on to win Agartala on a BJP ticket.1
Ahead of the poll, BJP's Tripura election in-charge Sunil Deodhar released a common minimum programme agreed with ally IPFT: the IPFT would not press its demand for a separate 'Twipraland' state, and the two parties would instead address tribal socio-economic, cultural and linguistic concerns.2
The Election Commission announced that voting for the 60-seat assembly would be held on 18 February, with results declared on 3 March, alongside the Nagaland and Meghalaya elections.3
In his closing campaign remarks before the poll, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the state 'deserves a diamond but in order to get it, it must let go of the manik,' a pun on the name of incumbent Chief Minister Manik Sarkar.4
The Bharatiya Janata Party-Indigenous People's Front alliance went on to win 44 of the 60 seats, BJP 36 and IPFT 8, ending 25 consecutive years of Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front government. Biplab Kumar Deb was sworn in as Chief Minister on 9 March.5
- 1Sudip Roy Barman and Five Trinamool MLAs Join BJP — Sudip Roy Barman
- 2BJP Ally IPFT Agrees Not to Press Twipraland Demand in Joint Programme — What Does BJP's Tripura Ally, IPFT Really Stand For?
- 3Election Commission Announces Tripura Poll Schedule — 2018 Tripura Legislative Assembly election
- 4Modi Closes Campaign With 'Diamond, Not Manik' Line Against CPI(M) — 2018 Tripura Legislative Assembly election
- 5BJP-IPFT Alliance Ends 25 Years Of Left Front Rule — 2018 Tripura Legislative Assembly election, Biplab Kumar Deb
What changed
BJP and IPFT were each winning assembly seats in Tripura for the first time.
The CPM suffered a collapse after a long winning streak.
It had won 8 elections in a row before this one.
The single biggest shift ran from the CPM to the BJP, covering 26 of the 45 seats that changed hands.
Together with its ally, the BJP controlled 44 seats as part of an alliance — a group of parties that team up to fight an election together, and share power afterward if they win enough seats between them.
Notable numbers
The closest race was Manu, Tripura, decided by a margin — how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second — of 193 votes.
Charilam, Tripura went the other way, won by 85.9% of the vote.
Turnout — the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot — was highest at Khowai, Tripura, where 95.8% of registered voters turned out.
Even the state's lowest turnout, at Charilam, Tripura, was still 80.9%.
Badharghat, Tripura was the largest constituency by registered voters, with 57,394 names on its rolls.
Banamalipur, Tripura drew the most candidates of the year, 8 in total.
The backdrop
Tripura became a full Indian state on 21 January 1972, after governing as a Union Territory without a legislature from 1956 and with an elected ministry from 1963.6
It was created a full state together with Manipur and Meghalaya under the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971.6
The CPM had governed Tripura for most of its history as a full state before BJP ended that run in 2018.
- 6Tripura Becomes A Full State — Tripura, North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971