With the hawk-eyed Election Commission scanning poll-bound Tripura, electioneering in the state came to an end dot at 4 p.m. on Thursday. Leaders and workers of various political parties have withdrawn into their shells —- the ruling Left Front members in their party office on Hariganga Basak Road and Congress leaders in Ginger, the newest hotel in the state capital.And everybody here is asking: Will the Congress be able to oust the Left Front, well-entrenched since 1978 with just one break in 1988-93? Also, is it going to be easy to actually unseat the Left in a state considered a mini-West Bengal?“The stage is set for the curtains to be pulled down on the Left Front. The measures adopted by the Election Commission have made it virtually impossible for the Left to capture any booth or rig the polls,” said veteran Congress leader and Union minister Santosh Mohan Deb. He is an MP from Assam and was elected to the Lok Sabha from the South Tripura constituency in 1991.The Election Commission, which has introduced certain new steps, has declared the polls as a model election for the entire country. It is for the first time that every polling booth is being manned by armed personnel from various Central paramilitary forces.“The state Congress has never gone out in such strength to fight an election before,” recalled former chief minister and PCC chief Samir Ranjan Barman, who is almost tipped to be the next Chief Minister in the event of the party and its ally — Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipera (INPT) — managing to get a majority. “It is very important for us to win this election,” said Prithviraj Chavan, Minister of State in the PMO, who is Congress’s election manager for Tripura.The Congress is banking on three major segments of about 20-lakh voters: government employees, jobless youth and women. The party has prom-ised raising the retirement age of government employees, over one lakh of them, to 60 years from the existing 58. “We are also expecting votes of the five lakh educated unemployed youth,” said Chavan.“But the biggest chunk is the women voters. This section has remained insecure in the 15-year Left Front rule,” said Santosh Mohan Deb. The party has also accused the ruling Left Front of failing to utilise funds provided by the Centre for development programmes. The Left Front dismisses all this. “We have worked by taking the people along with us,” asserted Chief Minister Manik Sarkar.Sarkar also cites reports from Union Home Ministry and Finance Ministry that his Government’s performance was one of the best. “The Prime Minister has himself appreciated our Government’s performance,” he said.
