2023 Tripura Legislative Assembly election
Legislative Assembly elections were held in Tripura on 16 February 2023 to elect all 60 members of the Tripura Legislative Assembly. The votes were counted and the results were declared on 2 March 2023. The Bharatiya Janata Party won a simple majority, defeating its rivals Secular Democratic Forces and the Tipra Motha Party. Tipra Motha Party won 13 seats at its debut and became the largest opposition party in Tripura. Background The tenure of 12th Tripura Assembly is scheduled to end on 22 March 2023. The previous assembly elections were held in February 2018. After the election, Bharatiya Janata Party formed the state government, with Biplab Kumar Deb becoming the Chief Minister. Biplab Kumar Deb resigned from Chief Minister post on 14 May 2022 and he was succeeded by Manik Saha as the new chief minister. TTAADC elections Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council elections were held in April 2021, in which the Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance won an astounding victory, drubbing both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), with the TIPRA and its ally the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra winning a total of 18 out of the 28 elected council seats. The BJP was restricted to 9 seats and the CPI(M) was completely washed out, unable to win any seats, losing their supermajority of 100% seats in the council. Major political defections In 2022, 8 National Democratic Alliance (5 Bharatiya Janata Party and 3 Indigenous People's Front of Tripura) MLAs resigned and left the BJP, out of which 4 joined TIPRA, 3 joined the Indian National Congress, and 1 joined the Trinamool Congress (albeit later resigned from the party). There have been defections in the TTAADC where BJP MDC leader Hangsha Kumar Tripura joined TIPRA. Schedule The election schedule was announced by the Election Commission of India on 18 January 2023. Parties and Alliances Reports emerged in late January in which the Tipra Motha Party was in talks for a possible alliance with the BJP and IPFT. During this time the Tipra Motha Party and the IPFT held talks for a possible merger. However last minute reports later stated that BJP talks with TMP fell off while BJP announced to continue alliance with IPFT, BJP announced that the party was still against IPFT's demand for Tipraland and that the party would be allotted 6 seats as per the alliance agreement. Secular Democratic Forces In early January reports emerged that the Congress and CPI(M) had begun talks of a possible alliance between the parties to unitedly defeat the incumbent government (NDA). Congress and CPI(M) had initially held talks with the Tipra Motha Party however both parties later backed out of the talks as each party did not want to change its ideological stance for the alliance with each other. The TMP later announced it would be contesting alone in the upcoming election while on 14 January 2023, the CPI(M) and the Congress announced to enter into seat sharing agreement for the upcoming assembly