BJP’s Biplab Deb Is Assured Of Victory, But He Has Embraced A New Challenge In Tripura

Tripura’s former chief minister Biplab Deb, who has been nominated by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as its candidate from the Tripura West Lok Sabha seat, doesn’t believe in wasting time. Because he has a larger mission than just winning the elections. 

Thus, as soon as his nomination was announced in early March, he hit the ground running. Pollsters are unanimous in the view that it will be an easy win for him, but Deb has set a larger goal for himself: he wants to wipe off the Marxists from Tripura’s political space. 

Deb became the chief minister when the BJP came to power for the first time in the northeastern state in March 2018. He stepped down as chief minister in May 2022 and was made a Rajya Sabha MP. 

Deb, 52, grew up in Agartala and shifted to Delhi after his education.

“I grew up in a Tripura that was in darkness, desolation and despair under CPI(M) rule. It was a party-state where the party controlled everything, even people’s lives. It was after I went to Delhi and started working and living there that I realised how the CPI(M) had kept the state deliberately backward and the people in poverty,” Deb told Swarajya. 

His family has a long association with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). His parents fled religious and economic persecution in then East Pakistan and emigrated to Tripura in the late 1960s. They settled down in a village near Udaipur town in Gomati district of the state. Biplab Deb was born there. 

His father, Hirudhan, was a member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and was also associated with the RSS. Biplab grew up reading about leaders like Syama Prasad Mukherjee, Veer Savarkar, Golwalkar and others. 

His political philosophy took shape during his student days in Tripura.

“The CPI(M) was autocratic and did not allow space for rivals. I realised very early in life that the CPI(M) is not only undemocratic, but also poses a grave threat to democracy. The SFI (students’ affiliate of the CPI-M) didn’t allow students’ organisations affiliated to any other party to exist on campuses. I witnessed first-hand how they (SFI) used threats, intimidation and physical violence to snuff out opposition,” recalled Biplab Deb. 

“I made up my mind at that time only, as an undergraduate student, to work towards getting rid of the CPI(M) from Tripura. During those days, we had to work secretly out of fear of the SFI and the CPI(M). We used to hold secret meetings to spread our ideology,” he said. 

After shifting to Delhi, Deb says he realised how the CPI(M) had, by design, kept Tripura backward — socially, economically and culturally.

“They (the CPI-M) did that because it is easier to exercise control over people who are poor and backward, who are ignorant and lack a worldview. The CPI(M) was not content with merely political power, it wanted and wielded total power over people’s lives. All aspects of a person’s life. Because that is the only way to rule in perpetuity,” said Deb. 

“My resolve to get the CPI(M)-led Left Front out of power in Tripura grew much stronger once I started living in Delhi. I realised the benefits of development that my fellow citizens in Tripura were being deprived of. That pained me greatly,” he told Swarajya. 

His association with the sangh parivar grew stronger and he became an active member of the BJP. 

Biplab Deb was resourceful and hard-working, and caught the eyes of senior BJP leaders who realised, post-2014, that a serious effort needs to be made to oust the Left from power in Tripura. 

The top leadership of the party (BJP) started paying attention to Tripura and started deputing organisational functionaries to strengthen the then fledgling party unit in the state. A number of awareness campaigns and agitational programmes were launched to highlight the many failings of the CPI(M)-led Left Front government. 

Biplab Deb was brought in and made the president of the BJP state unit in 2016. Considerable resources and manpower were deployed and a momentum built up against decades of CPI(M)’s misrule. 

Ultimately, in the assembly elections held in February 2018, the BJP alongwith its ally — the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT) — won a decisive victory and ended CPI(M)’s grip on power in the state. 

But dislodging the CPI(M) from political power was easier than rooting out the deeply entrenched communists from the state’s ecosystem.

“The CPI(M) had infiltrated and infected all institutions — the academia, bureaucracy, police force, civil society organisations and even the NGO sector. They kept on driving their insidious agenda through their embedded activists and sympathisers in all these sectors and institutions,” said Deb. 

“I realised that along with ushering in fast-paced development, especially infrastructure development and poverty alleviation, it is also necessary to root out the CPI(M)’s influence over civil society, academia and the official machinery. As chief minister, I made these twin tasks my priority,” said Deb. 

A relentless critic of the Left ideology, Deb has now made it his goal to inflict a crushing defeat on Congress candidate Ashish Kumar Saha who is supported by the Left. 

“The Left is shadow-boxing by keeping Ashish Saha in the front. Even though many in the CPI(M) are unhappy with the party leadership’s decision to extend support to the Congress in this seat (in the spirit of INDI Alliance), it is the Left which is actually in the fray. The Congress has been reduced to a non-entity in Tripura, it is the CPI(M) which occupies the opposition space,” said Deb. 

Hence, Deb has made it his mission to defeat Saha by the largest-ever margin in the seat’s history. “My victory by a record margin will spell a huge defeat for the CPI(M) also and will hasten the process of their obliteration from Tripura,” he said. 

Admittedly, the Tripura West Lok Sabha seat has never seen close contests. In 2019, BJP’s Pratima Bhoumik defeated the Congress candidate by a margin of over 3.05 lakh votes. Bhoumik polled 51.77 per cent of votes. The CPI(M) candidate trailed behind her by over 4 lakh votes. 

In 2014, the CPI(M) candidate defeated the Congress by over 5 lakh votes while in 2009, the victory margin of the CPI(M) candidate (over the Congress nominee) was nearly 2.5 lakh. 

In 2004, the CPI(M) candidate won the seat by a margin of nearly 3.85 lakh votes and in the 2002 by-elections, the Congress candidate trailed behind the CPI(M) candidate by over 1.5 lakh votes. In 1999, the CPI(M)’s victory margin was nearly 2 lakh. 

“I want my margin to be more than the victory margin in 2014 (5.03 lakh votes) in order to send a strong message to the combined opposition that their unholy alliance is no match for the BJP,” said Deb. 

What’s more, he adds, there will be a difference between his victory margin and that of the CPI(M)’s wins. 

“During the Left Front rule, all elections were completely rigged. False votes were cast by CPI(M) cadres and musclemen on a massive scale and genuine voters could never exercise their franchise. Only the CPI(M)'s committed voters (party members and their families) were allowed to vote. So the results never reflected the genuine will of the people. All the big victory margins till the 2019 Lok Sabha elections were meaningless," said Deb.

Only when the BJP came to power in the state, he contended, did elections become free and fair. "The first free and fair Lok Sabha elections was in 2019 because the BJP was in power in the state," said Deb.

"I want to show to the CPI(M) that in a completely free and fair election held in a totally peaceful environment without any threat or intimidation, I have won with a record margin. Their (the CPI-M's) poll victories in the past were fake. Pratima Bhoumik's victory (in 2019) was the first genuine victory," said Deb.

Bhoumik, however, faced a divided opposition: the CPI(M) and the Congress fought separately in 2019. But this time, the two opposition parties are in an alliance and the Congress candidate, Ashish Kumar Saha, is being backed strongly by the CPI(M).

The quest to defeat the combined opposition candidate by a record margin had led Biplab Deb to launch a campaign blitzkrieg. Even before filing his nomination papers last week, Deb had started his campaign.

Apart from holding small meetings with party functionaries and cadres, he had been meeting small groups of civil society members and also addressing small public gatherings. But since the middle of last week, he has pulled out all stops.

Deb has left his principal rival (the Congress’ Saha) far behind by addressing six to eight public rallies every day and holding at least two meetings with party karyakartas, sometimes even late in the evening, to enthuse them and gear them for the elections.

“I see a massive groundswell of support in my favour, my party's favour. The huge crowds that have been flocking to my rallies is an indication,’ he told Swarajya.

Deb’s claims are credible. Political observers say that Deb's rallies are drawing crowds and his rallies and padayatras are also evoking a good response.

The electoral battle ahead, says Deb, is but a part of his war against an ideology that is “anti-democratic, totalitarian and anti-people”.

“It is important, for the sake of democracy and for our society, to root out this ideology through democratic means. That is why I have set my sights on winning by a huge margin. Such a victory will be a huge setback to the communists and will hasten the process of their obliteration from Tripura,” said Deb.

The Tripura West Lok Sabha seat is made up of 30 assembly segments. The BJP won 18 of these in the 2023 assembly elections while its present ally, the Tipra Motha, bagged five. The CPI(M) won five and the Congress won two.

The 2023 assembly results show that there is some residual support for the CPI(M) in Tripura.

“Our aim is to win over those who voted for the CPI(M) in 2023. Many are still unaware of the dangerous and insidious nature of the CPI(M). It is our duty to enlighten them,” said BJP state president Rajiv Bhattacharjee.

In the Tripura West Lok Sabha seat, thus, it is a battle of ideas that is being waged. And a fight to finish the CPI(M).