New Delhi:
Politics may be the art of the possible; but it is definitely not an art to presume the voters to be naive.
The Trinamool Congress of Mamata Banerjee faces this phenomenon in Tripura.
Voters in this northeastern state may be simpleton but not to the extent, "visiting leaders" from Kolkata presume them to be. Mamata Banerjee's ambition to capture power in Tripura is fine, she wants to use the '2023 win' as a stepping stone to 2024 battle.
But some of Trinamool's 'advantages and assets' in West Bengal are simply
missing here. They do not have Muslim support base - which formed the foundation to take on BJP in West Bengal.
In Tripura, Trinamool will struggle to find 'a face' which is a quarter-like popular and voter-garner as Mamata herself is in her state.
In fact, the slogan ‘Bangla Nijer meye ke chay’ which was supposedly a game-changer in Bengal could also boomerang with tribal voters.
There are as many as 20 ST seats in the 60-member assembly.
Moreover, Tripura politics has been always bipolar. Either you stood with the CPI-M or with the Congress.
In 2018, the Congress was pushed to the margins and hence it was a clear battle again between the communists and the BJP.
The Tribal voters at present catered to by a newly floated 'TIPRA Motha' and the IPFT cannot accept a ‘brand Bengali leadership’ politics - that too imported from Kolkata.
The INPT is another outfit but it could not do well in 2013.
"Emergence of the Trinamool Congress in Tripura politics will mean one more spanner in their cherished idea of Greater Tipraland or Tipraland (for tribals) ," says Agartala-based eminent journalist Manas Paul of TripuraNet.com.
Sitting in Delhi, ivory tower experts and Hindi-speak TV journos may not also appreciate or understand the gravity of big difference Tripura's Bengali speaking population can have for a 'Kolikati party' (a political outfit from Kolkata).
Mere Bengali speaking factor may not unite people with a Kolkata-based party in a state where pro-Hindutva politics has made some penetration in last few years.
Moreover, the lingua franca in Tripura is a mixed variety of Sylheti and Mymensinghi. This is inherently different from the one spoken in Kolkata.
In West Bengal, the 'Muslim factor' played the main catalyst in favour of the TMC. Muslims remained wholeheartedly for Didi party in West Bengal where in the 2019 Parliamentary polls 70 per cent of the total Muslim electorates cast their votes in favour of the party.
In the 2021 Assembly elections it increased to near about 75 per cent.
This was a determining factor as Muslim population in West Bengal is about 30 per cent, and also growing.
In Tripura, Muslims account for only 3-5 per cent. Moreover, the Hindu population hail from erstwhile East Pakistan (or Bangladesh) and thus they know the ruthless impact of country's partition.
Moreover, by 2018 win, the BJP has the track record of proving itself in this erstwhile communist bastion.
The saffron party could break the umbilical cord between the voters and the pro-Marxist intellectualism.
Tripura has overwhelming presence of Bengali Hindus – who had to flee the then East Pakistan during partition in 1947 and also in 1971 during the Bangladesh war of liberation.
A large number of people from these sections have dealt with Muslim antagonism and this works as an advantage for the BJP.
What is apparently also worrisome for both the CPI(M) and the Trinamool Congress is that a large number of voters and active foot-soldiers are inherently anti-Left.
“We fought the CPI-M all along since 1993, but was always let down by the Congress high command as they stuck deal with the communists. Even as the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh did not come to campaign.
I then joined Trinamool Congress presuming Mamata Banerjee is sincere about fighting the Leftists; but after demonetisation, she spoke to Sitaram Yechury. And now both Yechury and Mamata are in same meeting in Delhi. Anyone not keen to fight the Marxists is just not my party," says Abir Nath, a political worker from Kumarghat region in the state.
ends
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