DA Editorial Desk | Dhruba Deka
Democracy is measured not only by who wins, but by how many citizens got the chance to choose. By that yardstick, the Village Committee elections in Tripura’s tribal areas deserve both celebration and caution. Of the 4,597 seats in 587 Village Committees, 1,644 were filled without a single ballot being cast. That is more than a third of the total. In 167 committees, there was no contest at all.
The beneficiaries were the ruling NDA partners. Tipra Motha took roughly 1,548 seats unopposed, and the BJP around 82. These figures did not appear by accident. They followed a seat-sharing arrangement announced on 10 September, under which the two allies avoided facing each other. BJP candidates withdrew from 105 seats and Tipra Motha candidates from 80. The arrangement kept the alliance united, but it also removed the voter’s choice between two parties that had fought each other bitterly in the April council elections.
It is fair to acknowledge what can be said in defence of the outcome. Unopposed victories are legal, and they are not new. In close-knit tribal communities, consensus candidates are sometimes chosen by elders and villagers themselves. Where seats were contested, the electorate turned out in force, with polling recorded at around 81 per cent. That enthusiasm is a reminder that people in the hills want to be heard and value their vote.
But enthusiasm makes the walkovers harder to explain, not easier. These were the first Village Committee polls in ten years. The previous elections were held in 2016, and the elected bodies’ tenure ended in March 2021. Villagers waited a decade for the chance to choose their local representatives. For more than a third of the seats, that chance never came.
The public record does not tell us why. Did opposition parties lack candidates? Were nominations withdrawn under pressure? Or did local consensus prevail? Valid nominations numbered 10,889, with Tipra Motha filing the most, followed by the CPI(M), the BJP, the IPFT and the Congress. Yet thousands of seats still ended with a single name on the list. In a healthy democracy, that gap should prompt questions, and the answers should be public. The uncertainty is itself the problem.
The opposition must also look inward. In 2016, the Left parties won a majority in 520 of the 587 committees. A decade later, the CPI(M) and the Congress could not field candidates in enough places to prevent their rivals from winning by default. Organisation withers when it is neglected, and voters cannot be asked to support a party that does not turn up. Blaming the ruling side alone will not rebuild a presence that has been lost over years.
The ruling alliance cannot take comfort either. Where its partners did fight each other, the contests showed a real appetite for choice. In Mandai block of West Tripura, in six seats where the BJP and Tipra Motha contested directly, Tipra Motha won four and the BJP-backed candidates two. Voters, given an option, used it. A victory earned in such a contest carries moral authority that a walkover cannot.
The elections were also marked by tension. Counting was accompanied by reports of violence at several locations, repolling was ordered at three polling stations, and a death was reported from Tulashikhar. A process that returns to the village after ten years should not be remembered for fear. The State Election Commission must investigate every incident and make its findings public.
There are practical steps that would restore confidence. The Commission should publish seat-by-seat data showing where nominations were filed, rejected or withdrawn, so that citizens can see how each walkover came about. Complaints of coercion or obstruction at the nomination stage should be examined promptly and transparently. Political parties, ruling and opposition alike, should commit to fielding candidates in every seat in future, and to resolving alliance arrangements before the nomination stage rather than at the cost of voter choice.
None of this diminishes the scale of Tipra Motha’s mandate or the alliance’s commanding position in the hills. Those results are real, and the voters who turned out made them so. But a mandate is stronger when every citizen had the chance to give or withhold it. A third of the seats were decided without that chance.
Trust in institutions is built slowly and lost quickly. Every uncontested seat that cannot be explained widens the distance between a village and the body meant to serve it, and that distance is hard to close once it opens.
Village Committees are where roads, water, jhum livelihoods and welfare schemes either reach people or do not. The winners now hold power at that level, and many of them hold it without ever having asked for a vote. They should govern as though they must still earn it.