Tripura Elections 2023: State's Electoral Past In 10 Numbers

The incumbent BJP will be facing off with the Left-Congress alliance

In four days, Tripura will vote for a new government and elect a 60-member assembly. The incumbent BJP will be facing off against the Left-Congress alliance, with the newly-formed Tipra Motha emerging as the third force in this election.

Here are 10 numbers to understand Tripura's electoral politics:

1972: The first assembly elections conducted after Tripura attained statehood. Before January 21, 1972, Tripura was a Union Territory. Sukhamoy Sen Gupta became the Chief Minister as the Congress party won 41 seats in the Assembly.
3: The number of Chief Ministers the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), the dominant party in the Left Front, has had so far. They are Nripen Chakraborty (1978-1988), Dasarath Debbarma (1993-1998) and Manik Sarkar (1998-2018).
7,303: The total number of days CPI-M's Manik Sarkar remained the Chief Minister of Tripura. Sarkar was the Chief Minister from March 11, 1998 to March 9, 2018, when the BJP came to power.
51: The total number of seats won by the CPI-M in the 1977 Assembly elections. This is a record which has not yet been broken in the state.
48.11: The vote share percentage of the Manik Sarkar-led CPM in the 2013 Assembly elections. This was the highest-ever votes polled by the winning party since Tripura became a state in 1972.
2018: The year when the BJP won its first direct electoral contest against the Left Front. Dislodging the CPI-M from power, the BJP won 36 seats while the main Opposition Congress scored zero. Prior to 2018, the BJP never had any representation in the Assembly. Until then, the main battle was always between the CPI-M and the Congress.
101: The number of days Radhika Ranjan Gupta remained the Chief Minister of Tripura. He had the shortest Chief Ministerial term after the CPI-M withdrew from its alliance with the Janata Party in 1977.
28,13,478: The total number of voters who are eligible to vote on February 16, a nine per cent increase from 2018. Moreover, there are 65,044 first-time voters -- 34,704 of them are men while 30,328 are women.
93: The percentage of votes polled in 2013 - a national record for any Assembly election. In fact, Tripura broke its previous national record of 91.22 per cent polling in 2008.
193: The narrowest margin of victory in the 2018 Assembly elections. CPI-M's Pravat Chowdhury polled 19,046 votes to defeat Indigenous People's Front of Tripura's Dhananjoy Tripura, who received 18,802 votes, in Manu.