With Congress keen on having an electoral understanding with the CPI(M) for the upcoming Assembly elections in Tripura, Congress in-charge of Tripura Ajoy Kumar on Sunday met CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury. However, any decision is expected only at the end of the CPI(M)‘s state committee meeting which will conclude on Tuesday.
“The core idea of this alliance is that there should be no division of the anti-BJP votes. The anti-incumbency against the BJP government has been growing and change of the Chief Minister midway through the term cannot reverse it,” a senior Congress leader said.
In the 2018 Assembly elections, BJP had got 36 seats, cornering nearly 44% of votes. CPI(M), which had ruled the State for 20 years, got only 16 seats, though they too got 42% of votes. Congress couldn’t muster even a single seat and got less than 2% votes.
The Assembly elections are scheduled for March this year. No conversation has taken place at this point on a seat-sharing arrangement. According to the sources, the two parties will form a smaller committee, drawing representatives from both sides, to decide on seat division.
“There are many ifs and buts, we will have to take every aspect into account, before taking a decision,” a CPI(M) leader said.
The Congress has also been in talks with Pradyot Manikya Debbarman, the chairperson of the TIPRA Motha party. However, according to sources, his changing stance has made many in the party uncomfortable about allying with him. Mr. Debbarman’s persistent campaign for Greater Tipraland is also a source of unease for Congress. “We don’t mind forging an electoral alliance with Tipra Motha but we cannot concede to its demand for a separate State. We do agree that more autonomy should be accorded to the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC),” Birajit Sinha, the president of the Tripura Pradesh Congress, said.
Mr. Debbarman quit the Congress in 2019 over differences in Congress’s stand on Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register for Citizens (NRC). While the Congress was opposed to NRC, Mr. Debbarman went to Supreme Court seeking the same for the State.
At the same time, sources do not rule out the possibility of a tactical understanding with TIPRA Motha, leaving a few seats in the tribal belt for the party.
