The Hindu : National : Tribals stood by us, says Manik Sarkar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 08, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

National

National

Tribals stood by us, says Manik Sarkar

Sushanta Talukdar

Left Front gets 19 of 20 reserved seats in Tripura

Guwahati: The Tripura Assembly elections saw the rout of the Congress-Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra (INPT) alliance and the ruling Left Front consolidating its base in the tribal areas.

The Left Front won 19 of the 20 seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes and the INPT got the remaining one. The Congress failed totally in these seats.

Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar told The Hindu that the tribals overwhelmingly backed the Left Front because of the development work initiated by the government in education, health and communication.

He said that in the last election a large section of tribals could not exercise their franchise in a free manner because of threats and intimidation by extremists. “However, during the past five years the extremists were completely cornered due to which tribal voters exercised their franchise freely and voted overwhelmingly for the Left Front.”

Mr. Sarkar said the amity of tribal and non-tribal people in Tripura under successive Left Front governments was also a key factor behind the “massive positive mandate.”

In 2003

In the 2003 polls, the Left Front won in 13 of the 20 reserved seats, the INPT six and the Congress got one seat.

The lone INPT candidate who won this time is underground leader-turned politician Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhal. He won from the Kulai constituency, defeating his nearest CPI(M) rival Sabitri Debbarma by a slender margin of 115 votes.

The CPI(M) wrested Ampinagar, Raimavalley, Pramodnagar, Chawmonu and Takarjala seats from the INPT.

In Pramodnagar, senior tribal leader of the CPI(M) and Chief Executive Member of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council Aghore Debbarma defeated the INPT candidate.

The CPI(M) also wrested the Golaghati seat from the Congress. In 2003, the party lost the seat to the Congress by only one vote. This time, CPI(M) candidate Keshab Debbarma won by a margin of 2,987 votes. The Kanchanpur seat, which the CPI(M) won by only one vote last time, was retained by it with an increased margin of 503 votes.

Women candidates

Apart from the success in tribal areas, women candidates of the CPI(M) also performed better this time. All the three women candidates elected this time belong to the party.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National