Tripura CPI(M) chief visits Cong Bhawan to ensure vote transfer on the ground

Agartala, Mar 24 In a bid to ensure transfer of votes on the ground, CPI-M’s Tripura unit secretary Jitendra Chaudhury visited traditional foe-turned-ally Congress’s state headquarters for the first time on Saturday evening and held a meeting with its leaders.
To political observers, Chowdhury’s visit to Congress Bhawan appeared as a survival strategy of the state’s erstwhile long-term rulers Marxists after a series of poll reverses since they lost power in the Tripura Assembly polls in 2018.
The CPI-M and Congress have been fighting unitedly against the ruling BJP since last year’s assembly elections, with the ties only deepening in the run up to the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
While Congress has put up its state president Ashis Kumar Saha as a candidate for the West Tripura constituency with the support of the Left, CPI-M has fielded a veteran tribal leader and former MLA Rajendra Reang with the backing of the Congress in East Tripura.
Despite an understanding at the national level, the parties in Tripura were poles apart even a few years back. But the rivals inched closer to each other ahead of last year’s Assembly elections and concluded a seat-sharing pact.
The alliance yielded good results for Congress, which picked up three seats, after becoming virtually non-existent much before the 2018 assembly elections following desertions of leaders to the BJP, Trinamool Congress and other parties.
But the CPI-M led Left Front failed to capitalise on the alliance to the extent it would have liked, as the BJP retained power.
Thereafter, the CPI-M and Congress have been maintaining close ties with each other, keeping an eye on the Lok Sabha elections. The bonhomie between the two opposition parties came to the fore yesterday as Ashish Saha and the CPI-M candidate for the Ramnagar assembly by-poll Ratan Das walked side by side in a road march and took active part in a procession.
However, the biggest surprise was reserved for Saturday, when the CPI-M state secretary and leader of the opposition, Jitendra Chaudhury, set foot in the Congress Bhawan.
The Congress leaders claimed it was a strategy to send the message of understanding between the two parties to the ground level to ensure transfer of votes in favour of each other. "In the last election, the understanding was somewhat confined to the top level and did not percolate to the ground. As a result, the BJP got the benefit.
“This time it will not be repeated and all anti-BJP votes will land in favour of Congress in West Tripura and CPI-M in East Tripura and Ramnagar by-election,” a Congress leader said.
A senior CPI-M leader described Chowdhury’s visit to Congress Bhawan as a “courtesy call”.
“The Congress leaders had gone to the CPI-M office several times before the assembly polls and held discussions, and it was only a return visit since both parties are fighting against the ruling BJP,” the Marxis leader said.