On the one hand, the opposition is planning a strategy for the winter session of Parliament, but Mamata Banerjee’s focus seems to be on 2024. That’s why she did not attend the meeting of the opposition. Mamta Banerjee is constantly trying to strengthen her hold in every state of the country. The effect of this has been seen in the civic elections of Tripura. Even though BJP has registered a big victory in 329 out of 334 seats in civic polls, Mamata Banerjee’s party has also shown better performance than before. Mamata Banerjee is also adopting a similar strategy to defeat the BJP in Tripura which was adopted by the BJP in West Bengal.
Though TMC has got only one seat, it has emerged as the second largest party in the state with 20 per cent vote share. At the same time, CPI(M) has got 3 seats that too with 16 per cent vote share. This performance has boosted the confidence of TMC, and the party can go ahead with bigger plans for the assembly elections.
The TMC’s total vote share was only 0.4 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, while it was only 0.3 per cent in the 2018 assembly elections. There is a big difference in the performance of TMC as compared to the last elections. It is clear that Mamata Banerjee’s party has been badly rejected by the public several times in the state. Despite this, Mamta Banerjee did not give up on her way to become a big face at the national level. Tried luck once again in Tripura and this time the party’s performance has been much better than the last two elections. A similar performance was seen between the BJP and the TMC in West Bengal, where the BJP has increased its vote share year after year.
For example, in the assembly elections held in West Bengal this year, even though Mamata Banerjee won the election easily, the BJP’s vote share was 38.1 percent. With this, the BJP had won 77 seats out of a total of 294 seats. Whereas in the year 2016 elections BJP got only 3 seats and vote share was 10 per cent. The BJP had also strengthened the organization by including faces like Shuvendu Adhikari from TMC in its party. Mamta Banerjee is doing exactly the same.
Disgruntled leaders of BJP and Congress are turning to TMC. After Mukul Roy, BJP MLAs Soumen Roy, Vishwajit Das, Tanmay Ghosh, former Union Minister Babul Supriyo and another MLA have joined TMC. After this, many big leaders including Rajib Banerjee, Ashish Das, Sushmita Dev are joining TMC. Apart from this, like the BJP, Mamta has also made the issue of violence, corruption and development in Tripura a weapon. Mamta is also making the same allegations against the BJP that the BJP had leveled against Mamta in Bengal. It is clear that TMC is moving fast to strengthen itself across Northeast India and its results are also visible.
However, the party’s base was weakened in 2017 when all six of its MLAs in the north-eastern state joined the BJP under the leadership of Sudip Roy Burman. Now TMC is moving forward in the direction of strengthening the organization with the increased support base.
On the party’s performance in the current local body elections, TMC’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee said on Twitter that “this is an extraordinary start to a party where there was little attendance, the party successfully contested the local body elections and achieved more than 20 per cent.” It has become the main opposition party in the state by getting more votes.” he adds, “Despite the fact that we started our activities barely 3 months back, while BJP has left no stone unturned to tear apart democracy in Tripura. Congratulations to all the brave soldiers of Tripura TMC for their exemplary courage.
At the same time, the BJP has rejected the TMC’s claims and said that the people have chosen the government of development. However, the fact cannot be overlooked that the TMC is trying to present itself as a big alternative to the BJP in the state. If the performance of TMC keeps getting better in every such elections, then maybe in 2023 elections we will see interesting contest in Tripura.
,