The dramatic rise of the BJP from zero Assembly seat to forming the State Government in Tripura in the 2018 Assembly polls raises hope among some party leaders to repeat the electoral feats of Tripura in Odisha. But there are significant dissimilarities between the political environments of the two States.

Tripura has 60 Assembly constituencies consisting of 30 general, 10 SC and 20 ST with around 25 lakh voters. During the 2013 Assembly poll, the CPI(M) had bagged 49 seats with 48.1 per cent vote share to form the Government, followed by the Congress with 10 seats and 36.53 per cent votes to occupy the opposition chair. The CPI had one seat with 1.57 per cent votes, INPT had 8 per cent votes and the IPFT had 0.4 per cent votes. The Congress could not match the CPI(M)'s organisational and propaganda strength.

Later, six Congress MLAs defected to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the TMC began to expand its base in the State. From the two tribal parties, IPFT and INPT, the IPFT was anti-Left and was engaged in an agitation for separate tribal Statehood. The 30: 20 ratio between the general and the tribal Assembly seats clearly indicates a division of the State into two polarities, teaching any party to have two plans for the two regions to come to power.

The BJP supported the IPFT during its Statehood agitation to get access to the tribal region though it did not support the tribal Statehood plan to balance the non-tribal voters.

The situation changed radically in the 2018 Assembly poll. 2,329,026 valid votes were polled. The BJP won 35 seats and its tribal ally, the IPFT (Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura) bagged eight to form the coalition State Government. The five consecutive term ruling CPM secured only 16 seats to sit in the Opposition. The Congress and the new TMC were fully decimated.

The BJP’s vote share increased from less than 2 per cent to 43.59 per cent while the CPM’s vote share dropped to 42.22 per cent from 48.1 per cent and that of the Congress the vote share nosedived from 36.5 per cent to 1.79 per cent. The BJP found a scope for itself in the high level 36 per cent vote share of the Congress in 2013 poll, an indication of sizeable anti-Left and anti-incumbency feeling among the voters. Congress was playing its opposition role weak due to its dependence on the Left parties for Center politics.

The soft opposition role of the Congress was frustrating the anti-Left voters to look for an alternative opposition. Here, the BJP came in. The BJP adopted the strategy of the replacement of the Congress to become a credible Opposition and later take on the ruling CPI(M).

The BJP inducted six TMC and one Congress MLAs to the party and entered into the State Assembly as principal opposition in 2017. It co-opted the grassroots caders of the TMC, the Congress and the tribal parties. It expanded its organisation through online registration, protest rallies, cultural events, formation of committees from the top to the booth levels, putting constituency level Vistaraks, appointing booth level ‘panna pramukh’ for 60 voters and ‘Shakti Kendra Vistaraks’ for five booths, frequent visits of Union Ministers and so on.

The BJP took up public issues like poverty, unemployment, tribal negligence, chit fund scam and so on. It promised freebies for the poor. It wooed the four lakh State Government servants who were languishing with the 4th Pay Commission salary in the age of 7th Pay Commission.

Comparing the Tripura political situation with Odisha, the similarity in the scope for the BJP exists in the spheres of the multi-term tenure of the ruling party, anti-incumbency, chit fund scam, development delivery issues, corruption in schemes and the weaknesses of the traditional opposition, the Congress.

On the other hand, there are significant dissimilarities between the two States. Tripura is a small State with 23 lakh voters and with 50,000 voting at the Assembly Constituency level whereas Odisha has around 2.25 crore voters with around 1, 50, 000 voting in an Assembly constituency.

The tribals are divided here into various clans and there are neither tribal political outfits nor social organisations.

There are also regional variations in socio-political attitude. Thus, Odisha is more complex in electoral structure than Tripura.

Secondly, the BJP was never in power in Tripura which aroused the public interest. But, the BJP was a junior partner in the Odisha Government for nine years having both positive and negative performance.

The BJP is doing a political mistake by hiding its Government history, instead of taking pride in its past good work, saying sorry for the erstwhile mistakes, blaming the principal partner BJD for lapses in the- then Government and then adding Modi-factor to it assert itself.

Thirdly, it is not easy for the BJP to replace the opposition Congress fully in Odisha and occupy its place, unlike Tripura. Congress was weak during the PRI poll and Bijepur by-poll which helped the BJP to become principal opposition, devastating the Congress.

But the Congress has begun to reorganise itself now to compete with the BJP to bag a portion of the anti-incumbency benefits.

The fourth difference lies in the ruling party’s character. The Tripura’s ruling CPI(M) is an ideology party whereas the ruling BJD is a welfare scheme-based party having access to weaker sections.

It has Pan-Odisha presence .It floats the equidistant theory to remain away from the BJP and the Congress to keep its distinct identity before the voters. Unlike the Left Government, the BJD undertakes substantial image building programmes, including media coverage and is not a fund -crunched party. It has settled the party dissidents in various posts.

It enjoys the support of the business groups too.

After the poll loss of the BJD in 2017 PRI election, it is correcting its weakness. Learning from Tripura, the ruling BJD has started to appease the Government servants and apply some of the organisational methods of the RSS-BJP to Odisha like its youth brigade, the “panna pramukh’ etc.

Therefore, needless to say, the BJP has to rely on a unique State poll plan to achieve its Mission-120 in Odisha, not following the Tripura methods.

2019 polls: Odisha won’t go Tripura way for BJP