New in the Northeast | Churn in all of Tripura, protests in parts of Guwahati

With the elections and government formation now over in Manipur, the focus will shift to Nagaland, Tripura, and Meghalaya — three states in the Northeast that go to polls early next year. As expected, these elections will be keenly contested, but the one in Tripura may be the standout.

It has been four years since voters in Tripura sidelined the ruling Left and elected a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government for the first time in the state’s history, and now, political alignments and formations are again taking place ahead of the assembly polls expected in February.

First, it was Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress that started boosting its presence in the state since 2021 with the hope of overthrowing the BJP in 2023 and also as part of its national expansion move beyond West Bengal. This was met with stiff resistance by the saffron party’s government and its cadres which at times led to violence as well.

Outsmarted by the BJP in 2018, CPI (M) and other Left parties are trying to regroup with the aim of recapturing one of their last bastions in the country. Armed with the presence of Sudip Roy Barman and Ashish Kumar Saha, two BJP MLAs who quit the party and joined the Congress last month, the grand old party is also looking at a revival of its fortunes in Tripura.

Beyond these battles of the more prominent parties, the poll contests in tribal belts of the state could be more interesting. Earlier this month, Patal Kanya Jamatiya, the chief of Tripura Peoples Front (TPF), joined the BJP — a move that surprised many in the state.

A vocal tribal activist, Jamatiya floated the TPF in 2014 and had been raising demand for a separate state for Tripura’s tribal people, filing PILs in Supreme Court against illegal immigration from Bangladesh and opposing Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which proposed to give citizenship to religious minorities who migrated to India from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Jamatiya had earlier been scathing in her attacks on both the BJP and the party’s chief minister in Tripura, Biplab Kumar Deb. She had called Deb an “illegal immigrant” from Bangladesh in past, but since her move to the saffron party, Jamatiya feels Deb is the first honest chief minister of the state.

The BJP’s successful luring of Jamatiya to its fold is seen as an attempt to curb the growing rise of TIPRA Motha, a party floated by Pradyot Kishore Manikya Debbarma, a former Congress leader and scion of the erstwhile Manikya dynasty which ruled Tripura.

Having won the autonomous district council polls in April last year, within three months of its formation, Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance or TIPRA or Tipra Motha is the dominant player in tribal areas of Tripura — a space in which the BJP is trying to make inroads. Following Jamatiya joining the saffron party, Pradyot announced that his party won’t have any tie-up with BJP for the next assembly polls.

Amid these developments, the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT), a tribal party that is a ruling ally of the BJP, is contemplating the possibility of merging or allying with Tipra Motha ahead of the assembly polls. It is worth mentioning that prior to the emergence of Tipra Motha, IPFT was the biggest party representing Tripura’s indigenous people and had won 8 of the 9 seats it contested in 2018.

Of the total 60 assembly seats in Tripura, 20 are reserved for Scheduled Tribes (STs). Tribal people account for nearly 30% of the state’s total population and can influence outcomes in 30-35 seats. Pradyot has already said his party would contest 30-35 seats in 2023. It remains to be seen what decisions others take.

Trees to make way for road widening

Nearly 2,500 trees are likely to be felled by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) in a 27 km stretch of NH37 in Guwahati bypass between Jalukbari and Khanapara as part of a move to widen the existing four-lane road into a six-lane one. The trees, some of which are large ones, have already been marked and NHAI has already started felling them.

The move has led to protests by groups of concerned citizens who came out to the streets last week to raise their voices. Besides hugging trees and forming human chains to show their disapproval of the move, these citizens are planning to raise awareness on how the felling of trees on such a large scale could affect the largest city in northeast.

Guwahati is already listed as the most polluted city in northeast in a study conducted by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). With an winter average PM2.5 (particulate matter that are two and half microns or less in width) of 81 ug/m3, PM2.5 concentration of Guwahati is currently 32.8 times above the World Health Organization air quality standards and falls in the “very unhealthy” category. The felling of trees could aggravate the situation.

Besides pollution, many areas of Guwahati have been facing water scarcity and the city witness flash floods every time a big downpour happens. Groups like Fridays for Future, which is creating awareness on these issues and leading the protest against felling of trees, say if felling of trees to make way for roads and other development projects continue the city will see more such problems.

The East Kamrup forest division, under which the present widening of the NH37 is taking place, had recently revealed that around 300 trees, some nearly 70-80 years old were cut down in Guwahati during two years of the Covid19 pandemic to make way for flyovers and roads.