THE notification for elections to the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC), which had been pending since March last year, was finally issued by the State Election Commission on March 4. After the expiry of the tenure of the elected Left Front Council in May last year, the state government, taking advantage of the Covid-19 situation, was keen to reign in the TTAADC through appointment of an administrator. But following a Tripura High Court verdict, the government was compelled to hold elections to the council. The elections will be held on April 4 and the votes will be counted on April 8, 2021.

Except for the Left Front, there are skirmishes among other contenders, including the ruling BJP-IPFT, particularly over seat-sharing. Though we have to wait till March 17, the last day of withdrawal of nominations, to get a clear picture, it is anticipated that the contest would be multi-cornered and mainly between the Left Front and the BJP-IPFT alliance.

On March 6, the Left Front released its list of candidates for all the 28 ADC seats. While the CPI(M) will be contesting in 25 seats, the CPI, RSP and the FB will contest in one seat each. The list of candidates comprises 17 new and young faces, including five women. Immediately after the release of the list of candidates, Left Front workers held processions with the candidates in various parts of the ADC areas.

The relations between the BJP and its ally IPFT became sour over sharing of seats. The main issue with which the IPFT was mobilising a large chunk of the tribal youth was the formation of a Twipraland. With this demand, they staged a continuous blockade of national highway and railway of the state for 11 days in 2017. But by this time this issue has faded away as the tribal youth have largely realised that the demand is just unfeasible and absurd in case of Tripura. This resulted in disillusionment among the tribal youth about the IPFT. The IPFT realised it needs to check the erosion in its support base, particularly ahead of the TTAADC election. At this stage, Pradyot Kishore Deb Barman, the grandson of the last king of the state, fielded himself by floating a new alliance, namely TIPRA (The Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance). In its first press meet, the TIPRA and IPFT, TSP (Twipraland State Party) declared to contest the ensuing ADC elections unitedly with the motto of ‘Greater Twipraland’ cutting apart some areas from Assam, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and even part of Chittagong hill tracks in Bangladesh. IPFT leaders thought this political jugglery would strengthen their hands before the seat-shating negotiations with the BJP. The BJP was enraged and reportedly threatened the IPFT to snap ties with it, which will result in the smaller partner losing two cabinet posts, sacking of their leaders from various nominated bodies and revival of the media person Shantanu Bhowmik murder case, where one of the top IPFT leaders is accused. This threat acted as magic. The new bond between IPFT and TIPRA severed before it started working. But bickering on sharing of seats is still continuing. At last, BJP-IPFT finalised sharing of seats in 11 and 14 respectively and they would engage in friendly contest in three seats.

Pradyut Kishore Deb Barman, with an attempt to thrill the tribal youth, raised a slogan of  all-in tribal unity for greater Twipraland. Initially, IPFT and TSP (Twipraland State Party) led by Patal Kanya Jamatia shared the press meet with Pradyut Kishore Deb Barman but realising the irrationality of the greater Twipraland, IPFT finally distanced itself from this alliance. Now TIPRA, INPT led by Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhwl, a traditional alliance partner of Congress, and TSP will be contesting the election as an alliance. The Congress though doesn’t have any relevant presence in the tribal areas has declared to contest in all seats independently. 

VIOLATIONS OF MODEL CODE
The Model Code of Conduct (MCC) has come into effect in the TTAADC areas the moment the State Election Commission announced the poll schedule. Since then both the ruling alliance partners started aggression on the opposition parties orchestrating one after another attacks. On Martyrdom Day of Dhananjoy Tripura on March 3, CPI(M) leader Badal Chowdhury was attacked. He had gone to garland a statue of Dhananjoy Tripura at Manirambari. In 1975, during a demonstration on four-point fundamental demands of the tribal people, including recognition of Kokborok as a state language, Dhananjoy Tripura was shot to death by police at Jolaibari, South Tripura. The murderous attack on Chowdhury took place in front of the police. Indiscriminate volley of brick chips hit several participants, including Chowdhury who was wounded in his head. This attack was spearheaded by BJP hooligans who were remotely instructed by their leaders. Grievously wounded Chowdhury was first treated in Belonia Hospital from where he was referred to AGMC and GB Pant Hospital in Agartala. Two vehicles, one used by Chowdhury and other by CPI(M) Belonia SDC leaders, were badly damaged.

On March 6, the district magistrate of West Tripura who is also designated as District Election Officer for TTAADC election, in a memorandum, directed all concerned for placing vehicles for carrying people intending to attend a meeting in Vivekananda Ground in Agartala on March 9. The memorandum directed that the total cost of to-and-fro journey of all the participants will be borne by the government. As expected, the prime minister addressed the rally virtually and other ministers physically. In their speeches, both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and state ministers claimed extravagant achievements of their government in the last three years with those projects which were either initiated or almost completed by the erstwhile Left Front government. Prime Minister Modi resorted to falsehood regarding most of the projects to claim credit. The Agartala-Akhaura rail connection was mooted and work initiated by the Left Front government which Modi scrupulously tried to conceal. In this way, Prime Minister Modi inaugurated several other projects that were initiated by the Left Front government. In the list of the places for placement of vehicles mentioned, it showed that out of 61 such places, about half of those fall inside the ADC area. In this way, the government tried to unethically influence the ADC people in favour of their alliance at the cost of government exchequer.  
       
On March 8, Left Front candidate Anjana Kalai (Debbarma) was attacked by the IPFT workers when she was returning after collecting nomination papers. The attackers tried to snatch away the nomination papers from Kalai and threatened her with dire consequences if she files nomination. They also attacked former ADC member and CPI(M) Jampaijala sub divisional secretary Ramendra Debbarma in a shop. They injured him and vandalised the shop where he was sitting. All these incidents were reported to the State Election Commissioner and the police station concerned. The police, however, did not take any step to book the culprits. 

The slogan of formation of ‘Twipraland’ having proved to be a hoax, most of the tribal parties are in search of slogans to incite ethnic passion. They are equally indifferent on the utter failure of the BJP-IPFT government to address the problems of life and livelihood of the common people, increasing number of pathetic incidents of starvation deaths, selling of kids, suicides, and rampant corruption, unemployment, siphoning of MNREGA wages by the BJP volunteers, the attack on democracy, violation of human rights, deception of people with attractive electoral promise, etc. The Left Parties have taken the challenge to extensively highlight the issues in the campaign for the TTAADC elections.