Agartala: ‘Can we cast our votes this time?’ This is the only question that the people of Tripura are asking in the run-up to the 2023 assembly elections to be held on February 16.In normal circumstances, the big issues of assembly elections in this Northeastern state are employment, development, health, drinking water and good roads. That was what they were in the assembly elections of 2008, 2013 and 2018, after the insurgency in the state waned in 2006-07. That is what they should be now. But they are not. Instead, the people of Tripura have just one question: “Can we cast our votes this time?”This one question sums up five years of frightening experiences. Ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept the 2018 assembly elections, many among Tripura’s electorate have been prevented from exercising that basic tool of democracy: the right to vote. Over the last five years, intimidation and violence were the biggest features of polls in the state, whether the polls in question were for local bodies or the Lok Sabha. So much so that on December 31, 2022, the state’s chief electoral officer (CEO) Kiran Gitte announced an initiative called ‘Mission Zero Poll Violence’ for the 2023 assembly elections – something that had never happened before, even at the peak of the insurgency in the state.Despite this assurance, the people of Tripura are apprehensive. Gathering in quiet groups away from the public eye, they ask each other: “Can we cast our votes this time?”The question will be answered in less than a week.Unity the only solutionThe desire of the people for a fair and fear-free election has caused some very unlikely events to take place in Tripura’s politics. Most importantly, it has forced the state’s traditional arch rivals, the Congress party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) to forge a seat-sharing agreement for the first time ever.CPI(M) rally in the ST reserved-seat of Kanchapur in North Tripura.“We were highly appreciated when we issued our joint statement on December 28 that appealed for the support of the people to restore democracy in the state. Now the people want us to come together to fight the election rather than divide the votes,” said CPI(M) state secretary Jitendra Chowdhury and All India Congress general secretary Dr Ajoy Kumar soon after they sealed their seat-sharing deal on January 13.The fact that the two parties are working together shows the desperation of the opposition in this BJP-ruled state. The Congress and the CPI(M) have been each other’s nemeses for decades. Even when the CPI(M) supported the Congress at the national level from the 1990s onwards, the Congress in Tripura remained committed to toppling the Left Front regime in the state.But when much of the rank and file of the Congress party joined the BJP before the 2018 elections, taking the traditional supporters of the Congress with them, it was the BJP that broke a quarter century-old Left Front rule. This in a state without a firm Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh base, where none of the saffron party’s usual calls to action, such as ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Akhand Bharat’ have much meaning. In the 2013 assembly elections and even before them, the BJP secured only a minuscule vote share. But in 2018, it won 43% percent of the votes. Now, a united opposition is the only way to fight the BJP.After the nominations withdrawal deadline on February 4, a total of 259 candidates were left in the fray. The ruling BJP fielded candidates for 55 out of 60 constituencies, leaving five for its ally, a seemingly dying regional entity, the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT). The main opposition, the Left Front, fielded 46 candidates (43 for the CPI(M) and one each for the Communist Party of India, the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Forward Bloc), while its seat-sharing partner, the Congress, fielded 13. The CPI(M) and the Congress together supported one independent candidate. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) went with 28 seats, while the TIPRA Motha (Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance, a Scheduled Tribe-based regional party also contesting unreserved seats and considered a possible game-changer in these elections) declared candidates for 43 constituencies. There are 14 candidates from other small parties and 55 independent candidates in all.Votes are already being cast through postal ballots. Manifestos from all the prime contenders have been announced. Star campaigners from all the parties are pouring into Tripura. Remarkably, the CPI(M) is bringing in youthful faces from other states, while the ruling BJP is mainly banking on faces very familiar in the media: Union home minister Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, Union defence minister Rajnath Singh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, etc. The TMC understands that its prospects in this election are low, but it still brought in its party chief, Mamata Banerjee, the West Bengal chief minister, and its supremo in the making, Abhishek Banerjee, among others, for a two-day visit.A Left-Congress supported Independent candidate introducing his poll symbol to CPI(M) politbureau member Brinda Karat.Atmosphere of fearDespite all this, there are no groups of people hanging around paanwala stalls on city, town and village streets, debating the prospects of the various parties at the polls. This distinctive feature of elections in a state which has had the highest voter turnout in India for many elections is missing this year.Instead, election talk takes place only indoors, in safe places. Only there do the floodgates of discussion open. Party activists, especially those from the opposition parties, are active in rallies or door-to-door campaigns, but not vocal otherwise. There has been a strong sense of intimidation in the state since 2018, when the BJP swept the assembly elections. On March 6, 2018, even before the state ministers took their oath, a statue of Lenin in Belonia town was brought down by an excavator said to have been hired by BJP workers. All elections in the state in the past five years have allegedly been ‘managed’ by the ruling party, starting from the Panchayat bye-polls in October 2018, which the Left Front and the Congress called ‘a farcical exercise’. The phrase, ‘the BJP won uncontested’ was first heard then and has continued to be heard since. During the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, 160 booths in West Tripura constituency were re-polled. The only other Lok Sabha constituency in the state, the East Tripura constituency, had a suo moto change of returning officer and its poll dates rescheduled.In January this year, Jitendra Chowdhury, the state secretary of the CPI(M), spoke with the full bench of officials from the Election Commission of India (ECI) who visited Tripura before announcing the single phase elections slated for February 16.Chowdhury told them: “Since Lok Sabha elections first started in the country in 1952, the Commission had never deferred poll dates on its own. Yet, that is what happened during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. In our small constituency, 160 booths were re-polled. The 2019 general elections tell the story of what has happened to elections in the state under the current regime. In the past five years, opposition parties have not been allowed to carry out political activities. BJP workers, who are hand in glove with the police and the administration, have snatched away the democratic rights of the people of Tripura.”He continued: “You don’t need to take our word for it. Just place a CPI(M) flag on each of your cars and drive for 10 kilometres in any direction. If you return unhurt and the cars remain undamaged, we will not complain again.”When Congress leader Sudip Roy Barman met the officials from the ECI, he handed over a long charter of demands. After meeting the chief election commissioner, TMC state president P.K. Biswas told reporters: “I told him, if law and order are not under control, there is no way to conduct a free and fair election. The present situation is not conducive for an election. It would be a farce. Mere assurances of free elections don’t work. We all know by now what such assurances actually mean. We saw that in past elections.”Congress’s poster boy in Tripura, MLA Sudip Roy Barman, hugging an elderly voter in the Bitarban area, Agartala.Only Dr Ashok Sinha, the ruling party representative at the meeting with the ECI, refused to provide journalists with a copy of the BJP’s written submission, which every other party did willingly.Unfair electionsA few months after the Lok Sabha elections came the panchayat polls. Doordarshan News wrote on August 8, 2019: “In Tripura, the ruling BJP swept the three tier panchayat election, securing 96.9% of the seats … Out of a total 6,646 seats, the ruling party won 5,652 seats uncontested. Polling was held for the remaining 994 seats on July 27, of which the BJP won 789 seats.”This ‘uncontested’ election makes it obvious that the panchayat polls were not at all fair and free and the state election authority did little to ensure transparency. Pabitra Kar, a CPI(M) state committee member, had led a delegation to the State Election Commission at the time of nominations for the panchayat elections. He told them: “(Our) candidates could not even reach the offices of the returning officers, let alone file the nominations. They could not even collect the nomination forms. People went door to door to our candidates, warning them not to contest the elections.” Even the IPFT, the BJP’s ally, lodged objections regarding the panchayat elections.In 2020, when the tenure of the Tripura Tribal Area Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) was about to expire, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Elections to the ADC were thus deferred. But the elections were postponed for so long that the Tripura High Court had to issue an order to complete the poll within a stipulated time frame.After the ADC polls, Shukla Charan Jamatia, the general secretary of the BJP’s junior partner in state cabinet, the IPFT, officially sought a re-poll for the constituency he fought. He told this reporter at that time, “My votes are all rigged by BJP workers.”In late 2021, when the municipal elections were finally held after a year of deferment, there was such widespread violence and so many accusations of rigging that the Supreme Court of India ordered the Ministry of Home Affairs to deploy two additional companies of Central paramilitary forces. In these elections, which dealt with one municipal corporation, 13 municipal councils and six nagar panchayats, the BJP won 329 seats, the Left Front three seats and the TMC one seat. In many cities and towns, opposition parties reported that they just could not file nominations. Thus, there was no contest in many of the civic bodies that went to the polls. One of these civic bodies was in law minister Ratanlal Nath’s constituency.Tripura Congress president and former minister Birajit Sinha during a poll campaign.On the day of the election, many of the candidates couldn’t enter the booths to cast their votes, let alone the electorate. A number of candidates and their families were attacked on the premises of polling stations. Cameras caught outsiders pressing the buttons on the electronic voting machines (EVMs). Allegedly ‘dead’ voters cast their mandates. A BJP member of the legislative assembly (MLA) had even written to the local police chief a few days before the polling date about his anticipation of violence.This local government election was covered extensively by news media from across the country – the first time ever that local body polls in Tripura made national news. So grave was the violence that the opposition parties approached the Supreme Court after working hours seeking an urgent directive and eventually on the morning of the polls, the apex court asked the Union home ministry to deploy two more companies of Central paramilitary forces. But the state election authority termed the local bodies election ‘free, fair and largely peaceful’.In July 2022, the bye-poll for four assembly seats set a peculiar example. The CEO later admitted that ‘violence took place’ then, but took no corrective measure in time for the bye-elections.By now, elections in Tripura have reached such a point that people refer to their ‘elected representatives’ as ‘chappa councillors (fake councillors)’, ‘chappa MLAs’, ‘chappa MPs’, etc. Recently, in a public meeting, CPI(M) politburo member Manik Sarkar referred to Dr Manik Saha, the chief minister of Tripura, as a ‘chappa mukhyomontri’ (fake chief minister).Dr Saha had been elected in the July bye-elections. Before the July bye-poll, Tripura’s CEO, along with the returning officers and the superintendents of police, had assured voters that the election would genuinely be free and fair. “You will not have seen such an election ever before,” they told the electorate.But two days before the polling date, an opposition candidate was assaulted and sent to the hospital. Large numbers of outsiders were brought to the polling constituencies. Fake voters from other districts were caught red-handed in queues inside polling stations and handed over to security personnel. But none of them were charged. In fact, they were freed. Genuine voters were sent back home.Journalists discovered a pattern: the outsiders all wore white bands on their wrists. These white bands were the way their bosses identified them and the reason that the security forces took no action against them when they were caught. A policeman on the way to his booth was stabbed. Journalists were physically assaulted too. Opposition parties demanded re-polls for many booths, but the CEO’s office refused these demands.Chief minister Manik Saha and deputy CM Jishnu Debbarma welcome BJP president J.P. Nadda at Agartala airport.Intimidation tacticsMore or less the same electoral officers, in addition to others, bear the responsibility for the 2023 assembly elections on February 16. The CEO is also the same person – Kiran Gitte. Despite the ‘Mission Zero Poll Violence’ initiative and the thousands of Central Armed Police Force personnel sent to Tripura in December and January to keep the peace before the elections, not a single day passes without violence.“At least three Left cadres were admitted to hospital after they were attacked for taking part in our poll campaign,” said CPI(M) leader Ratan Das. AICC general secretary Ajoy Kumar was injured a few days ago while out on a rally. At least three candidates were attacked in the last few days.In the last few years, intimidation has been the biggest political activity in Tripura. Bike-bahini (bike-borne thugs) had never been seen before in the state, but now they exist in large numbers. Not only the opposition parties but even the people of Tripura refer to the them as the ‘ruling party gang’. Over the last five years, hundreds of houses were attacked, ransacked and set on fire, it is alleged.“Our party offices were destroyed and hundreds of bulldozers were dodged in these years. Many of our workers’ houses were attacked not once, but several times. Even when there were witnesses to these acts, the police did nothing. In some cases videos were shot and the miscreants were identified, but nothing happened,” said Jitendra Chowdhury, who has been relating these stories to the media repeatedly.BJP Tripura president Rajib Bhattacherjee during a door-to-door campaign in Banamalipur, Agartala.The office of Pratibadi Kalam, a local newspaper, was set on fire, vandalised and looted as policemen accompanying a BJP procession watched. This incident was also recorded on video. One of the main accused in this case, according to Pratibadi editor Anal Roy Chowdury, was the BJP leader, now the state party president, Rajib Bhattacherjee. “He was booked under non-bailable sections of the Indian Penal Code, but he roams free,” Roy Chowdury said. Bhattacherjee is now standing for election from the Banamalipur constituency in Agartala. Two CPI(M) offices, including the party’s state headquarters, were also attacked the same day.Soon after this incident, Bhattacherjee held a press meet in which he said: “[That] was a trailer only. The rest is due.”In a public meeting, at least one BJP leader explicitly told party workers to ensure that no CPI(M) candidate or activist approached the voters and the polling booths. Bishwabandhu Sen, the deputy speaker of the Tripura Legislative Assembly, told his youth brigade during a public meeting, “Break the bones of government employees affiliated to the CPI(M).”The house of Kaushik Chanda, the Left leader of Dhanpur, has been attacked 16 times in the past five years. He is a candidate in the assembly elections this time. One government employee was suspended from her job four days before her retirement, accused of participating in a 2018 election rally. Opposition MLAs have been attacked on almost a regular basis. When a CPI(M) MLA attended a wedding he had been invited to, the host was fined Rs 50,000 for inviting him. Many people have been arrested for criticising BJP leaders. An assistant professor at a medical college was demoted for stating his opinion of the then chief minister on Facebook. This man was a BJP supporter who had worked hard to garner support for the saffron party among doctors before the 2018 elections. At least 50 journalists were attacked across Tripura in the last five years. One police station was attacked twice in a day. The late N.C. Debbarma, a state minister from the IPFT, once had to flee his constituency when thugs attacked.The police took no action in any of the cases described above. However, they were quick to take suo moto action when they were allegedly asked to ‘pick up’ an activist from an opposing party. Rajkumar Debnath, the president of a BJP mandal, is the prime accused in the murder of Shahid Miah, a supporter of the Left parties. Debnath was the chief guest at a government programme in which the law minister, the district magistrate and other top level officials took part.Almost every day, opposition leaders write to the CEO, complaining of poll violence or the partisan attitude of functionaries. Jitendra Chowdhury recently wrote: “ The Bishalgrah sub-divisional police officer’s office (SDPO) has become a den of goons. He was served a notice on a directive of a court for intentionally submitting a light chargesheet in the Shahid Miah murder case to make sure that offenders got bail. I wrote to you about this earlier too. He needs to be removed from there.” On Thursday, Chowdhury wrote to the ECI, saying that SDPO Rahul was booked under charges including ‘attempt to murder’. He demanded the SDPO’s removal again.The ECI has suspended one SDPO, and removed two police officers, but that was in another sub-division. That is also the only instance of strict action of this kind on the part of the protectors of Indian democracy. One presiding officer was also suspended for taking part in a political activity.It is no wonder that ‘Can we cast our vote this time?’ is practically the only issue being discussed by the people of Tripura just before an assembly election being held 75 years after India gained independence.It is no wonder that all the opposition parties place the issue of law and order right at the top of their manifestos. Even if they promised 2.5 lakh new jobs over the next five years in their manifestos, the first promise of the CPI(M) and the Congress to the people is ‘Regaining peace and tranquility, ensuring democratic rights, revival of Constitutional rule’. The BJP, meanwhile, claims a drastic reduction in crime rates in its first tenure in Tripura.TIPRA Motha chief Pradyut Debbarman.The polls approachThree days ago, on February 7, the CEO and the state police nodal officer once again assured the public of a violence free poll on February 16. The CEO said: “More Central forces are coming in by February 11. All efforts are in place for a peaceful election.”Nakas have been set up across the state. “Rs 9.5 lakhs and Rs 5.14 lakhs in cash were confiscated from two different places in Gomati district, while 15 cartoons of liquor were seized and 7,500 ganja plants were destroyed,” said a press release from the CEO’s office on Wednesday.A total of 3,337 polling booths have been scheduled for the 28 lakh voters of Tripura. An election officer said, “Among these, 28 booths are marked as ‘critical’ because these are the booths from which a single candidate pulled about 70% votes last time.”There is very little to be positive about in the run-up to these elections, except for one thing. A few unreserved seats are being contested by candidates from the Scheduled Tribes, Jitendra Chowdhury of the CPI(M) among them.