Contrasting victories

While the Left Front retains power in Tripura, but under a new Chief Minister, a dramatic turn of events leads to B.B. Lyndgoh forming a non-Congress(I) government in Meghalaya.

THE Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front assumed power for the fourth time in Tripura with the swearing-in on March 11 of a 17-member Ministry headed by Manik Sarkar. All the Ministers are of Cabinet rank. Forty-nine-year-old Sarkar is the ninth and the youngest Chief Minister of the State.

Former Chief Minister Dasarath Deb, who was present at the swearing-in ceremony, did not contest the Assembly elections held in February, owing to failing health. He resigned shortly after the declaration of results. A member of the CPI(M)'s Central Committee and the father figure of the Communist movement in Tripura, Deb was elected thrice to the Lok Sabha and four times to the Assembly. Former Deputy Chief Minister Baidyanath Mazumdar was unwilling to take over as Chief Minister, also owing to poor health. Mazumdar has replaced Manik Sarkar as the secretary of the CPI(M)'s State unit and the convener of the Left Front.

At a farewell ceremony organised by the civil secretariat administration at Agartala, Dasarath Deb said the recent elections in the State were a testimony to the electorate's overwhelming acceptance of his government's programme and policies.

The 19 Opposition MLAs - 14 of the Congress(I), four of the Tripura Upajati Juba Samity (TUJS) and one of the Tripura National Volunteers (TNV) - boycotted the swearing-in ceremony in protest against "rigging of the polls and malpractices in the counting of votes". Samir Ranjan Barman, leader of the Opposition in the dissolved Assembly, said: "The Front came to power by resorting to forgery and violence. Hundreds of Congress(I) workers were attacked and several houses set ablaze by CPI(M) activists."

The Left Front Cabinet has 14 CPI(M) members apart from Manik Sarkar, and one member each from the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and the Communist Party of India (CPI). The Forward Bloc, another constituent of the Left Front, did not win any seats. Ten members of the Dasarath Deb Ministry have been included in the cabinet.

The Ministers are Anil Sarkar, Badal Chowdhury, Aghore Devbarma, Narayan Rupini, Keshab Mazumdar, Bimal Sinha, Subodh Das, Niranjan Devbarma, Jiten Chowdhury, Fayzur Rehman, Sukumar Barman, Gopal Das, Durmajoy Reang, Pabitra Kar, Ananta Pal and Ramendra Debnath.

Manik Sarkar was the unanimous choice of both the old guard and the younger leaders of the CPI(M) in Tripura. He started his political career in the early 1960s through the student movement, and the food movement of the 1967-68 brought him to the forefront of state politics. Sarkar became a member of the party's State committee in 1972. He was the State secretary of the Students Movement of India (SFI) for 10 years from 1971. In 1980, he was made the Chief Whip of the ruling Left Front and in 1985, a member of the party's Central Committee, and in 1993, the State secretary of the CPI(M). He was also the Secretary of the party's youth organisation, the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI).

Sarkar was born in Udaypur in south Tripura in a lower middle class family. His father, Amulya Sarkar, was a tailor and his mother, Anjali Sarkar, an employee of the State Health Department. His wife is an officer of the Social Welfare Department of the Central Department.

During the Emergency, Manik Sarkar was arrested under the Maintenance of Interal Security Act (MISA).

'Manikda' to partymen, Sarkar is a follower of the expelled CPI(M) leader and former Chief Minister Nripen Chakravarty.

One of Sarkar's first actions as Chief Minister was an appeal to the tribal insurgents to lay down arms and join mainstream politics. "Shun the misguided path you have taken and return to normal life as honourable citizens. The Left Front Government will ensure your socio-economic welfare and rehabilitation," he advised the insurgents. Sarkar attributed the insurgency to machinations by "frustrated elements in the Opposition parties."

Addressing the Left Front's victory rally in Agartala on March 17, West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu said the Left Front was able to withstand the anti-establishment sentiment in Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura.

In contrast to the cohesive functioning of the Left Front, the Congress(I), the main Opposition party in Tripura, is racked by group rivalry. The 14-member Congress(I) Legislative Party still remained without a leader. A number of contenders such as Ashok Bhattacharya, Birajit Sinha, Surajit Dutta and Ratanlal Nath challenged Samir Ranjan Burman and this resulted in a rat race for the post of the Congress(I) Legislature party.

Although the Left Front still enjoys a two-thirds majority in the 60-member State Assembly, its present strength, 41 seats, is lower than its strength in the previous Assembly by eight seats. The CPI(M), which won 44 of the 51 seats it contested in 1993, has won 38 of the 55 seats it contested this time. While the Left Front has lost 1.66 percentage points in terms of vote-share, the CPI(M) has increased its share of votes from 44.35 to 45.50 per cent. The BJP, which secured only 2 per cent of votes in 1993, has done better by polling 5.87 per cent of the vote. The BJP split the Congress(I) vote in 10 constituencies, and thus helped the Left Front.

IN a dramatic turn of events, the 12-day-old Congress(I) Government in Meghalaya, headed by S.C. Marak, collapsed on March 10 and within four hours of Marak's resignation, Brington Buhai Lyngdoh of the United Democratic Party (UDP) was sworn in Chief Minister.

The Marak Ministry was installed under controversial circumstances on February 27. Since neither the Congress(I) nor the UDP secured an absolute majority in the 60-member House, smaller parties and independents played a crucial role in government formation. The Congress(I), which emerged as the single largest party by winning 25 seats, claimed that it had the support of three independent MLAs and that it should be given a chance to form a government.

An hour before the Ministry led by Marak was sworn in, UDP leader Lyngdoh claimed a majority and submitted a list of 32 MLAs to Governor M.M. Jacob. Besides 20 members of his own party, Lyngdoh claimed the support of three members each of the BJP, the Hill State People's Democratic Party (HSPDP), and the People's Democratic Movement (PDM), one member of the Garo National Council (GNC) and two independents.

The Governor rejected Lyngdoh's claim on the grounds that only the BJP had committed its support to the UDP in writing. He went ahead with the swearing-in of the Marak Ministry. The Congress(I) Chief Minister was asked to prove his majority in the Assembly by March 12.

That Marak will fail to prove his majority became clear immediately after the election of the Speaker on March 10. The election of UDP candidate E.W. Mawlong was a clear indication that Marak would be defeated in a trial of strength. Mawlong got the support of 30 MLAs; the Congress(I) nominee, Sujit Sangma, lost by one vote. One vote was declared invalid.

Marak chose to step down without another trial of strength. In doing so, he broke the record held by Lyngdoh for heading the Government in Meghalaya for the shortest period. Lyngdoh's regional party coalition government in 1988 lasted 30 days.

After tendering his resignation, Marak accused the United Parliamentary Forum (UPF), under which the UDP and its coalition partners are functioning, of using communal politics to seize power. He was hinting at the Khasi-Garo divide, which was being fuelled for political reasons by vested interests.

He told Frontline that he had lost because he was betrayed by friends who had promised him support. Marak said the outcome on the floor of the Assembly was not a "people's mandate, but the result of sheer political manipulation". He alleged that the independents who had pledged him support were pressured to leave him and were kept in captivity.

He said that the new Government suffered from too many contradictions within."It is difficult to provide stability with such a thin majority." Asked if he would try and win back his supporters, he said, "I need not struggle, they will come back soon on their own." However, Marak resigned later as Congress(I) Legislature Party leader and he was replaced by D.D. Lapang.

To check desertion from his camp, Chief Minister Lyngdoh has had to form a large Cabinet with 26 members and make every effort to ensure that no Minister has any grouse over the distribution of portfolios. The sensitive Forest and Environmet portfolio has been given to his close aid and HSPDP leader, H.S. Lyngdoh. Two independent MLAs, who played a key role in government formation, have been included in his Cabinet.

A lawyer by profession, Lyngdoh was the architect of several coalition governments in his 30-year-long political career. He was Chief Minister in at least two of these. Lyngdoh, along with late Capt. W.A. Sangma, experimented with a national government in which the regional group and the Congress(I) shared power equally for half the term, from April 1979 to 1983. While Lyngdoh was Chief Minister for the first half, Capt. Sangma took over the reins for the second half. In 1990, Lyngdoh became Chief Minister again after Purno A. Sangma's government was toppled. Sangma found himself deserted by his coalition partners, one of whom was Lyngdoh's group.

Despite his victory, Lyngdoh is a worried man as he knows that defection by a single MLA can lead to the downfall of his Ministry.