INDIA’S ruling BJP claimed victory at the weekend in elections in the north-eastern state of Tripura, bringing 25 years of communist government to an end.

Official results showed that the right-wing party took 43 per cent of the vote, just pipping the Communist Party of India — Marxist (CPI-M) on 42.7 per cent.

The Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), a tribal-based party allied to the BJP and linked to separatist insurgents, came third with 7.5 per cent.

It appeared that almost all of the BJP tally had come from defecting Indian National Congress voters. Congress won 36.5 per cent of the vote in 2013 but only 1.8 per cent this time.

Nationally, Congress is the largest opposition party to the Hindu supremacist BJP.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed the victory was down to his party’s “solid development agenda,” though communist Tripura has made great strides compared with the rest on India, both socially and economically.

The CPI-M government has hugely increased literacy, decreased poverty and boosted public health coverage. It also quelled a separatist insurgency while bolstering communal relations, which may now be threatened by the BJP-IPFT alliance.

Mr Modi also said: “People do not have the time or respect for negative, disruptive and disconnected politics of any kind.”

However, the CPI-M political committee noted that the BJP “has, apart from other factors, utilised massive deployment of money and other resources to influence the elections.”

Following the counting of votes on Saturday, it reported attacks on communists and party offices in Tripura by “BJP-IPFT goons.”

That follows violence during the campaign, with rightwingers trying to assassinate CPI-M election agent Pulin Barman on February 18, the day of the vote.

The party also blamed BJP heavies from outside Tripura for attacks on two party workers in early February in Agartala and Khowai.

It had earlier sounded the alarm over meddling with voting machines, vote-buying and dodgy electoral material, including one video that accused the CPI-M of “red terror.”

The party vowed to “carefully examine the reasons for this electoral setback.”

Communist former Kerala chief minister VS Achutanandan raised the prospect of building a secular alliance to fight the BJP, in practice meaning an accommodation with Congress.

General secretary Sitaram Yechury said the party would “continue to oppose [the] BJP and its divisive agenda, not only in Tripura but all over India.”