The Assembly elections in Tripura did not turn out to be as 'tough' as had been predicted by none otherthan the ruling Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPI-M) party secretary, Baidyanath Mazumder. At one stage,the CPI-M led Left Front, appeared to losing ground in the face of a determined assault by the banned NationalLiberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) militants and their political front, the Indigenous Nationalist Party ofTripura (INPT). The INPT brought together two separate political parties - the erstwhile Tripura Upjati JubaSamity (TUJS) and Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT), and claimed to represent 'tribal interests' inthe State.
There was also an intensive campaign of intimidation by the militants in the hilly interiors, with the messagegoing out that additional security arrangements for the elections would not protect the tribal electorate forlong, and unless the INPT won all the seats they were contesting, a blood-bath would follow. This was why LeftFront leaders, including Chief Mnister Manik Sarkar had frantically pressed the Union Home Ministry andElection Commission for additional forces to ensure that the tribals could cast their votes. As a result, morethan 37,000 extra men, including Army contingents, were deployed, in addition to the force already on duty incounter-insurgency operations in Tripura, creating a ratio of one security man for every 25 voters.
The overwhelming security had a major impact, and the tribals in most of the constituencies, excluding a fewbooths in each, turned out in large numbers to cast their ballots and the CPI-M secured thirteen of thereserved twenty tribal seats, wresting one from the INPT, the Bagma constituency of south Tripura which hadbeen won in five consecutive elections since 1977 by Ratimohan Jamatya, who conceded defeat this time by asmall margin of 74 votes.
A profound quiet seems to have descended on Tripura, with the Congress-INPT trying to come to terms with theirelectoral reverses, and the ruling Left Front reviewing the realities of the retention of power for a recordfifth - and a third consecutive - term.