The Bharatiya Janata Party won a comfortable majority in the Tripura Assembly elections, dismantling the Left Front government of 25 years. The saffron party alone was victorious in 35 of 59 seats – according to the results the Election Commission declared on Saturday. But with the eight seats its ally, the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura, won in the polls, its tally rose to 43 in the Assembly.

Outgoing Chief Minister Manik Sarkar retained his Dhanpur constituency, but only 16 others from his Community Party of India (Marxist) won their seats. The Congress, which had won 10 constituencies in the 2013 elections, could not win any this time.

The BJP’s gains were massive, as it had no seat in the previous Assembly. The seat share of the Left was reduced to a third of its tally in 2013, when it had won 50 constituencies.

Although the seat count of the BJP was more than twice that of the CPI(M), the vote shares of the two parties were not much different. Nearly 43% of the electorate in Tripura voted for the BJP and 42.6% for the CPI(M).

Voting for one seat, Charilam, was pushed to March 12 after CPI(M) candidate Ramendra Narayan Debbarma died while campaigning.