The anti-Left Front opposition, the Congress to say, was in utter disarray even after the notification of the poll schedule. Its entire endeavour was earlier targeted at delaying the panchayat polls on flimsy grounds, by creating wrangles. But having miserably failed in stalling the poll process by even a single day, thanks to the Guwahati High Court verdict, the Congress had no choice but to espouse the democratic process, despite its alienation from the rural populace due to prolonged exposure of its anti-people and anti-progress stance. Eleventh hour squabbles for nomination in the party resulted in the filing of several faulty nominations.

Now, even as the Left Front has embarked upon the second phase of the poll campaign, no worthwhile campaign on part of the Congress, the arch opposition party in the state, is as yet in sight. The rural populace of Tripura appears bent on giving an electoral rout to the Congress and other such representatives of reactionary vested interests that will otherwise stop the process of progress in rural Tripura, set in motion by the Left Front by making use of the three-tier Panchayati Raj system since 1994.

Left Front leaders, including the ministers of the Left Front government, have been addressing massive poll related meetings at the village and block levels statewide. In addition, innumerable Left Front activists have been active in rural Tripura with the appeal of the Front for a clear mandate. On the other hand, the opposition has continually been crumbling down as the Congress activists are deserting their camp en masse, committing themselves in public meetings to actively rally around the forces of progress and making further exposures of the already discredited leadership of the anti-Left front from opposition parties.

The determination of the rural populace to give a massive mandate to the Left Front candidates was visible in the huge and spirited processions with which the candidates filed their nominations. And now, similar and all the more spirited processions are being taken out in every nook and corner of rural Tripura with the Left Front candidates in the vanguard, and with people of all walks of life, of all castes and creeds joining the processions.