Tripura Elections Rewind: How The Last Polls Set The Stage For 2023 Face-Off

 BJP's meteoric rise: The party had never won a single seat in Tripura before 2018. In 2013, the BJP polled 1.54 per cent of votes. But in less than five years, Tripura changed its colours in a result credited mainly to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The party polled 43.59 per cent of the votes - a whopping 2,730 per cent increase since 2013 - and won 36 seats. The BJP's rise was mostly at the expense of the Congress, whose vote share it ate into.

BJP vs CPI-M contest: While the two parties are ideological rivals, there had never been a direct electoral contest between the two parties until 2018. Historically, CPI-M's rival had been the Congress (Trinamool in Bengal since 1998) in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, which are the Left bastions.

Left losing another bastion: The CPI-M-led Left Front ruled the state for nearly four decades, with a gap between 1988 and 1993, when the Congress was in power. The Tripura loss came seven years after the Left Front lost power in West Bengal, a state it had ruled for 34 years. The loss was also symptomatic of the Left's rapid decline in national politics - from a high of 59 seats in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls to just 10 seats in 2014.

Congress's rout: The party's electoral fortunes continued to decline as it won no seats in the 2018 polls - its worst performance. Traditionally, the main Opposition party in the state, the Congress' vote bank declined from 36.53 per cent in 2013 to just 1.79 per cent in 2018.  Its vote bank, data shows, largely shifted to the BJP.

Tribal factor: The BJP allied with the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) and swept the tribal seats. In 2018, the alliance won 18 out of the 20 seats reserved for the Scheduled Tribes. The IPFT won eight of them. However, it has been a downward journey for the IPFT since 2018. The party was wiped out in the 2021 Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council polls and settled for just five seats while allying with the BJP this time.