BJP holds Tripura as Tipra Motha becomes the new opposition
What happened
Bharatiya Janata Party's alliance held onto power in Tripura, though its own majority narrowed.
It won 32 of the 60 seats on its own.
That left it 1 seat above the halfway mark.
The Tipra Motha Party, contesting for the first time, finished second with 13 seats.
The campaign
Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barma founded Tipra Motha on 5 February 2021, campaigning for a separate state or autonomous territory called Greater Tipraland for the region's indigenous communities.1
In the run-up to the election, eight sitting NDA legislators left the alliance — four joined Tipra Motha, three joined Congress and one joined Trinamool Congress. At a rally in Agartala on 12 November 2022, Tipra Motha leader Pradyot Kishore Debbarma said the Greater Tipraland demand would not be compromised, and the party went on to contest 42 seats alone.23
The BJP renewed its alliance with the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura, allotting it 6 of 60 seats, while continuing to oppose IPFT's own separate-state demand. The CPI(M) and Congress struck a seat-sharing pact of their own: CPI(M) contesting 43 seats, Congress 13 and allied parties 4.45
During the campaign, Union Home Minister Amit Shah accused Tipra Motha of being allied with Congress and the CPI(M) against the BJP. Debbarma denied the claim, saying his royal-family lineage precluded any alliance with communist parties.6
- 1Tipra Motha Emerges As Main Opposition — Tipra Motha Party
- 2Eight Ruling-Alliance MLAs Defect Before the Election — 2023 Tripura Legislative Assembly election
- 3Tipra Motha Reaffirms Greater Tipraland Demand at Agartala Rally — Tipra Motha Party, 2023 Tripura Legislative Assembly election
- 4BJP Renews Alliance With IPFT for 2023 Poll — 2023 Tripura Legislative Assembly election
- 5CPI(M) and Congress Announce Seat-Sharing Pact — 2023 Tripura Legislative Assembly election
- 6Amit Shah Accuses Tipra Motha of Tacit Alliance With Congress and CPI(M) — Tipra Motha Party
What changed
The clearest movement of the election was inside the opposition, where the ruling alliance's smaller partner suffered a collapse and a brand-new party took its place.
8 of the 30 seats that changed hands moved from Indigenousn People's Front Of Tripura to TIPRA.
The BJP's own total fell from 36 to 32 seats this time.
Turnout, the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot, fell -3.8 pp from the previous election.
Notable numbers
Jubarajnagar, Tripura saw the tightest finish of the election: the margin — how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second — was 296 votes.
Takarjala, Tripura saw the widest margin, with the winner finishing 81.2% of the vote ahead of the runner-up.
Manu, Tripura recorded the highest turnout of any seat, 92.1%.
NOTA — None of the Above, a ballot option letting voters formally reject every candidate on offer — drew 34,449 votes statewide, 1.4% of the total.
The backdrop
A Bharatiya Janata Party-Indigenous People's Front of Tripura alliance first won power in Tripura in 2018, ending 25 consecutive years of Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front government.7
- 7BJP-IPFT Alliance Ends 25 Years Of Left Front Rule — 2018 Tripura Legislative Assembly election, Biplab Kumar Deb