Historic Victory Of The Left Front

ILLUMINATING an illustrious new chapter in the country’s battle of democratic ballots against extremist bullets, the victorious march of the Red Flag in the election to the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (ADC) dealt the outlawed extremist and their overground political patrons an unprecedentedly complete electoral cleansing.

For the first time ever since the formation of the ADC in 1985 under the Sixth Schedule of Indian Constitution, the Left Front and its associate NSPT made the cleanest sweep of all the 28 ADC seats in the fifth ADC polls held on March 5 – the CPI(M) winning 21 seats, NSPT 4, and Forward Bloc, RSP and CPI one each.

Significantly enough, the Left Front won 27 seats in the third ADC elections held in 1995 in an atmosphere of political upheaval almost similar to the scenario preceding the just concluded ADC polls. The ADC electorate’s mood in 1995 was for voting with vengeance against the blood-soaked falsification of people’s mandate by the then ruling Congress-TUJS combine in the 1990 ADC polls. The combine defeated the very purpose of the ADC during the next 5 years through milking the ADC dry of all its funds and systematically devastating its entire democratic machinery. The year 2000 ADC polls saw the unprecedented use of the separatist militants who made impossible, through their terror campaign at gun point, any electoral campaign by any political party other than the outlawed extremist organisation NLFT’s overground political wing INPT. Many Left Front activists were killed or kidnapped and many others were dislodged from their hearth and home during the run up to those polls. The vital constitutional body, ADC, was thus usurped at extremist gunpoint, unleashing a reign of corruption and chaos at the ADC administration, bringing to a grinding halt, the entire development process of the backward ADC areas and devastating the entire fruit of the earlier development process under the Left Front.

But in the teeth of tremendous terror nurtured by the ADC administration of the INPT, the people have turned around by means of the Left Front’s ceaseless ideological campaign. At last, the ADC elections, 2005, have dealt the INPT and its clandestine ally, Congress party, a complete electoral rout. They restored the ADC from its INPT-led status of the headquarters of the separatist militants of Tripura into a glorious fortress of comprehensive democracy and development, peace and ethnic harmony once again.

The Left Front and its associate NSPT that had been formed about two years ago through a breakaway of a group of conscientious elements from out of the INPT, have polled 70 per cent of the valid votes in the March 5 ADC polls, leading to the forfeiture of the electoral deposits of the INPT and the Congress party in 90 per cent of the ADC seats. There has been not a single seat where all the votes polled by the anti-Left Front parties together can outnumber the votes polled by the Left Front candidate. The victory of the CPI(M) central committee member Aghore Debbarma at Halahali-Asharambari (ST) constituency by polling 83.95 per cent of the valid votes, is therefore typical of the massive reposing of trust in the Left Front by the state’s tribal community by giving a massive mandate against insurgency and in favour of development, national solidarity and ethnic harmony.

In separate statements on March 9, the Left Front committee and chief minister, Manik Sarkar, heartily hailed the ADC electorate for bringing about the historic victory of the Left Front in the fifth ADC polls by completely over-running the state’s political vested interests who are sponsored by internal and international forces of imperialist reactionary and insurgency. Such a historic victory of the Left Front and the consequent consolidation of the Leftist camp shall usher in a new chapter of the people’s triumphant march to development in Tripura, the Left Front hoped.

As soon as the news of the Left Front’s attainment of absolute majority had reached the ADC electorate, people spontaneously held a spirited victory rally at Khumulawng, the ADC headquarters near Jirania, West Tripura. The resurgent but restrained rally was the symbol of restoring the Khumulawng, meaning flower garden in tribal language, to its pristine glory and grandeur by means of an exemplary united resistance for five long years against the separatist armed militants who had made the Khumulawng the hot bed of all conspiracies against democracy and development in the Left Front -led Tripura.

Name of Constituency		L.F+NSPT	% of L. F.	INC	% of INC	INPT	% of INPT	BJP	Others
1. Damchhara-Jampui (ST)	NSPT	8084	58.98%	3288	23.99%	1067	7.78%	514	754
2. Machmara	AIFB	9661	62.56%	4030	26.09%	805	5.21%	848	100
3. Dasda-Kanchanpur	CPI(M)	9815	67.13%	2916	19.94%	1186	8.11%	297	407
4. Karamchhara (ST)	CPI(M)	11512	68.67%	4227	25.21%	494	2.95%	471	61
5. Chhawmanu (ST)	CPI(M)	9171	74.59%	1076	8.75%	2007	16.32%		42
6. Manu-Chailengta	CPI(M)	8760	68.35%	2253	17.58%	1050	8.19%	547	207
7. Demchhara-Kachuchhara (ST)	NSPT	8865	66.02%	1328	9.89%	1556	11.56%	737	942
8. Ganganagar-Gandachhara (ST)	CPI(M)	7892	69.15%	1746	15.30%	1539	13.48%	236
9. Halahali-Asharambai (ST)	CPI(M)	13264	83.83%	1530	9.67%	1029	6.50%
10. Kulai-Champahawar (ST)	NSPT	8969	68.92%	1065	8.18%	2796	21.48%		184
11. Maharani-Teliamura (ST)	CPI(M)	9883	73.86%	899	6.72%	2459	18.38%		139
12. Ramchandraghat(ST)	CPI(M)	11080	77.75%	379	2.66%	2687	18.86%	104
13. Simna-Tamakari(ST)	CPI(M)	8314	64.24%	312	2.41%	4142	32.00%		175
14. Budhjungnagar-Wakinagar(ST)	CPI(M)	9444	65.44%	682	4.73%	4233	29.33%		73
15. Jirania(ST)	CPI(M)	10822	65.56%	470	2.85%	5167	31.30%		47
16. Mandainagar-Pulinpur(ST)	CPI(M)	9325	71.73%	1510	11.62%	2092	16.09%		73
17. Pekuarjala-Janmejoynagar(ST)	CPI(M)	10722	74.61%	1262	8.78%	2273	15.82%		114
18. Takarjala-Jampuijala(ST)	NSPT	5599	63.17%	760	8.57%	2332	26.31%		172
19. Amtali-Golaghati(ST)	CPI(M)	15966	83.23%	1587	8.27%	1286	6.79%		345
20. Killa-Bagma(ST)	CPI(M)	11413	69.87%	2013	12.32%	2909	17.81%
21. Maharani-Chelagang(ST)	RSP	8726	71.07%	464	3.78%	2340	19.06%		748
22. Kathalia-Mirza-Rajapur(ST)	CPI(M)	17360	80.69%	2974	13.82%	999	4.64%	181
23. Ampinagar(ST)	CPI(M)	12143	76.69%	1770	11.18%	1921	12.13%
24. Raima Valley (ST)	CPI(M)	9395	73.00%	2161	16.79%	1262	9.81%	51
25. Natunbazar-Malbassa(ST)	CPI(M)	13012	67.35%	4431	22.93%	1676	8.67%		201
26. Birchandranagar-Kalashi(ST)	CPI	11233	73.10%	2891	18.81%	1242	8.08%
27. East Muhuripura-Bhuratati(ST)	CPI(M)	14057	83.46%	1260	7.48%	679	4.03%	206	641
28. Shilachhari-Manubankul(ST)	CPI(M)	12378	69.50%	3333	18.71%	1541	8.65%	313	246
		296865	71.63%	52617	12.70%	54769	13.22%	4505	5671
								1.09%	1.37%

People's Democracy