Months away from the assembly elections, the chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh(RSS), Mohan Bhagwat paid a two-day-visit to the northeastern state of Tripura in August. This was followed by his colleague Bharatiya Janata Party’s(BJP) National President, JP Nadda’s visit to the state.
On Focus: Party’s Key Strengths
In the recent by-elections, although the BJP had won 3 seats out of 4, it became clear, as highlighted by this writer in his previous piece for The Quint, there was a drop in the saffron party's vote share.
Nadda’s visit primarily focused on strengthening the ruling party ahead of the 2023 battle. He held separate meetings with party office bearers, state ministers, party MLAs and MDCs (Members of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council). Later, he interacted with the party state core committee as well.
Tripura’s Party Overhaul
Prior to his visit,the national president also appointed Rajib Bhattacharjee, the former state vice-president of the party as the new party president replacing, Chief Minister Manik Saha, who was also doubling as the state party president.
Bhattacharjee has been an old member of the RSS party who rejoined the party in 1990s. Therefore, his appointment served as a trope to win back the old-timers in the party who felt sidelined.
Tribal Alliance on the Cards
On his second and last day, Nadda held a party rally at Khumulwng, where the headquarters of Tripura Tribal Area Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) are located with the aim of boosting the party’s image in the tribal belt. Despite being in power for the last four and a half years, the party hasn’t been able to strengthen its position in the belt.
Just ahead of Nadda’s crucial visit, the saffron party received a big jolt as the Leader of Opposition of the TTAADC, Hangsho Kumar Tripura along with more than 6000 supporters joined royal scion Pradyot Debbarman’s Motha.
This desertion comes at a time when the Village Council polls of TTAADC are expected to be held later this year. If BJP performs badly, the party’s difficulties, undoubtedly, are likely to rise ahead of the 2023 battle. Tribals have an influence on 35-36 seats of the state assembly, out of which 20 are reserved for Scheduled Tribes.
It was actually a well-orchestrated plan by the BJP to hold a rally of Nadda in the tribal belt where the national president projected the party as ‘pro-tribal’ and also didn’t forget to pay homage to the last king of the princely state–Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya on his 114th birth anniversary.
Through this rally, the saffron party propagated the message that it is ready to challenge Motha’s dominance in the tribal belt. However, according to the local dailies, the turnout of tribals in Nadda’s rally wasn’t up to the expected mark.
BJP Keeping Open Channels With Motha
Although Nadda confidently claimed in a press conference that the saffron party would gain majority in the upcoming elections, he, however, refrained himself from directly attacking Pradyot’s Motha in the rally, keeping alive the speculations that it hasn’t closed the doors for any kind of alliance with the ruling party of TTAADC. The national president also met with MLAs of its ally–Indigenous People Front of Tripura (IPFT), headed by N C Debbarma.
It indicates that the party is keen to maintain good terms with IPFT, which recently has suffered a split with one faction led by Mevar Kumar Jamatia, who was a minister in the Biplab Deb-led cabinet, merging with Motha. Although Mevar is yet to officially join Motha, his wife Gita Debbarma has already joined Pradyot's party.
BJP Placing Bets on Tripura’s Royal Family
Interestingly, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, who visited the state before Nadda, on his first day had visited Rajmata Bibhu Kumari Devi, Motha chief Pradyot’s mother, at the Ujjayanta Palace. Even though this meeting was projected as a non-political one, but given the fact that RSS is the ideological parent of the BJP, it can’t be ignored that the Sangh Parivar also has its stake in the state politics. Pradyot himself welcomed Nadda’s rally as he accepted its importance at the heart of the tribal belt.
However, the demand of a separate sate of ‘Greater Tipraland’ for the indigenous communities by Pradyot is making it difficult for any party, whether BJP or Congress or CPI(M) to ally with Motha. Even for Pradyot, he can’t just abandon the demand, which brought his party to power in TTAADC. It seems that Bhagwat’s visit to the Ujjayanta Palace was an attempt to win Pradyot’s support.
Reforming ‘Hindutva’ in the Tribal Heartland
The RSS chief’s visit clearly had to do more than politics. It’s primary focus was to boost the Hindutva ideology. His main aim to visit the northeastern state was to inaugurate a Shiv-Parvati temple in Sarbong village in Amarpur of Gomati district. The temple, a part of the Shanti Kali Ashram,operates under the Shanti Kali Mission Society named after Acharya Shanti Kali Maharaj– a tribal Hindu priest.
He was involved in spreading the ideals of Hinduism in the tribal belt which was strongly despised by the militant outfit,National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), which dreamt of creating an independent "Christian Tripura" nation as an ethnic-cleansing drive backed by the Baptist church.
As a result, in the year 2000,Shanti Kali was killed by the NLFT militants who often had targeted tribals and non-tribals of the state for celebrating Hindu festivals.
Ahead of the 2023 battle, one thing is clear from the recent visits of the leaders that both the Sangh Parivaar and the BJP are giving importance to this tiny northeastern state, which they won in 2018 by a two-thirds majority by defeating its ideological rival, CPI(M).
(Sagarneel Sinha is a freelance writer from Tripura who writes on politics, foreign affairs and Indian mythology. He tweets @SagarneelSinha. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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