People's Democracy

BIRAJIT Sinha, Pradesh Congress chief of Tripura, IPFT president Bijoy Hrangkhaw and another INPT leader Ananta Debbarma held two separate nocturnal suitcase meetings with with two top brass of the para-military force Assam Rifles on February 11 at the brigade’s 11th Battalion headquarters situated in Agartala. It was reported in the local press that later Bijoy Hrangkhaw had a separate meeting with Assam Rifles Brigadier Satyendra Kumar on Feburary 13.

Caught by these revelations in the local press, the PCC chief was forced to admit at a press conference that the meetings did take place on the night of February 11. At the same time he denied that they were carrying any suitcase with them and that they were just courtesy calls. He side-stepped the issue saying that para-military forces should not be politicised.

THE CPI(M) has vehemently condemned the Congress-INPT combine’s blatant bid to vitiate the democratic atmosphere in the state by publicly eulogising militancy while privately parleying with para-military officers.

CPI(M) state secretariat member and Desharkatha daily editor, Gautam Das juxtaposed this incident with the allegation against the erstwhile Assam Rifles officer B K Panwar who misused his position in favour of IPFT, the political wing of the outlawed extremist organisation NLFT during the May 2000 elections to the Tripura Tribal Area Autonomous District Council (ADC), which resulted in the usurpation of the ADC by IPFT at extremist gun-point.

At a press conference held at the party state headquarters on February 16, Gautam Das criticised the Congress for joining hands with the notorious former extremist supremo of TNV, and current president of INPT, Bijoy Hrankhwal who is responsible for the killing of thousands of innocent people and security forces from 1980 to 1988. This has proved once again that the Congress depends mainly on the extremists instead of people’s support, he said.

This is the same Bijoy Hrankhwal with whom the Congress struck a secret deal in 1988 to unleash a campaign of killing that led to the falsification of people’s mandate in the 1988 Assembly polls and the consequent installation of semi-fascist Congress-TUJS coalition regime, as also the Rajib-Hrankhwal treaty to reward Bijoy Hrankhwal, Goutam Das recalled.

The heinous conspiracy of the Congress-INPT combine to once again deprive the people of Tripura both democracy and development will be seen through by the experienced people of Tripura, said Gautam Das. Their ploy by utilising the February 21 parliamentary by-poll as a testing ground ahead of the next year’s Assembly elections will be defeated. An indication of the people's mood is available from the steady erosions from the ranks of the Congress and the INPT.

The fortnight long vibrant and exhaustive poll campaigning by the CPI(M) came to a conclusion with the leaders exhorting the people to consign the Congress-INPT combine to a perpetual political wilderness by defeating it in this by-poll. They appealed to elect the Left Front’s CPI(M) candidate Khagen Das with a massive margin.

The tremendous response to the CPI(M) campaign can be gauged from the huge turn-out at the Left Front election rally held at Bishramganj, a long-time terror-torn area of West Tripura. Thousands of tribal people from several remote areas participated in the rally courageously defying the extremist

threats. Many sections of non-tribals and religious minorities too joined the rally in big numbers.

Addressing the Bishramganj rally, the chief speaker, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and chief minister Manik Sarkar gave a fervent call to the people to unitedly resist any attempt to stop them from exercising their franchise. He also asked them to exercise their choice judiciously, as the Left Front government is synonymous with the state’s struggle for peace and prosperity, while the Congress-INPT combine is the symbol of unprincipled politics at its worst.

Other massive election rallies were held at several places spread over Belonia, Udaipur, Bishalgarh and Sadar sub-divisions and were addressed by several CPI(M) state secretariat members and Left Front ministers besides other leaders of the CPI(M) and Left Front constituents.