Tripura Panchayat bypolls: BJP wins 96% of seats unopposed, bury hatchet with ally IPFT

The ruling BJP in Tripura has won 96% seats unopposed in the upcoming Panchayat bypolls in the state. According to reports quoting EC officials, BJP has won 3,075 Gram Panchayats, 154 Panchayat Samities and all the 18 Zilla Parishads seats unopposed. Election for  3,207 Gram Panchayat seats, 161 Panchayat Samiti seats and 18 Zilla Parishads seats will be held on September 30. By virtually sweeping the rural seats, BJP has strengthened its stranglehold in the North Eastern state which has long been a fiefdom of the Left. 

The by-elections were necessary after large scale resignation of many Left leaders post BJP's win in Assembly polls earlier this year. The nomination was filed on Monday and Tuesday and Friday was the last day of withdrawing nomination. The opposition has alleged BJP of intimidating its cadres which lead to so many unopposed wins for the saffron party, according to them. However, BJP has rejected all such allegation. According to opposition leaders, the situation in the state is not conducive for free and fair elections and the state election commission has done very little to allay their fears. According to them, out of 35 blocks, BJP has not allowed opposition to file nomination in 28 of them. Even BJP ally IPFT levelled allegations against them and there were reports of clashes between cadres of both parties. At least 19 persons including BJP, IPFT supporters and policemen were injured in a series of clashes that broke out in different districts of Tripura last week. 

 The BJP and its alliance partner IPFT Saturday decided to bury the hatchet over the issue of filing nominations for by-elections to the three-tier panchayat polls in Tripura scheduled on September 30.

The two parties have now decided to strengthen their state-level coordination committee by increasing the number of members and take steps to ensure that clashes do not break out in the future between them. The leaders of the two parties including the Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma of BJP and Mevar Kumar Jamatiya of Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) in a press conference said, an extended state coordination committee was formed "to quell disagreements that marked pitched violence among the two parties in different parts of the state during the last two weeks".

In May, the two parties formed a five-member coordination committee to address discontent arising from nomination of Block Advisory Committee (BAC) chairmen. The committee was extended today to 14 members with seven each from BJP and IPFT. Dev Varma said that CPI(M) had hatched conspiracies and tried to "infiltrate" the BJP and IPFT, which caused misunderstanding among the allies. "There have been cases of infiltration from CPIM into both BJP and IPFT recently. The communists are trying to disturb peace in the state. Since people have rejected them in the last elections, they are trying to get entry by the back door, Dev Varma said.
The 14-member new state-level coordination committee would be operational from September 19 and tour different sub-divisions where sub-divisional coordination committees will be formed.

"The committees will be helpful in ensuring that there is no communication gap between allies at the grassroots level," Dev Varma, who is also the Vice-President of BJP in the state, said. Tribal Welfare minister Mevar Kumar Jamatia, the IPFT general secretary, said CPIM was trying to destabilize the state government and appealed for calm among the tribal and non-tribal communities. A section of the BJP Janajati Morcha (ST frontal organization) leaders earlier urged Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, as well as the state BJP president, to sever ties with IPFT on the plea that the latter was trying to create chaos in the state.

With PTI inputs