People's Democracy

TRIPURA

Left Front Candidates File Nomination

Subrata Chakraborty

RIDING on the crest of huge waves of spirited and spontaneous mass processions over the past three days at several places of the state, all sixty candidates of the Left Front finished filing their nominations on February 1, 2008, while not more than three candidates of the Congress, a party miserably ridden with factional feud could file their nominations over the same period. Filing of nominations started on January 30 with the issuance of formal notification of the Assembly elections 2008 in Tripura.

The never-failing bond of the Left Front and the CPI(M) with the pulse of the people was writ large on the vibrant and vigorous gathering of red flag-wielding men and women both tribal and non-tribals from the morning on the occasion of nomination-filing at all the sub-divisional headquarters statewide throughout the three days. As morning went on to the forenoon, the people joined vibrant rallies, despite the CPI(M)'s initial intention not to organise very massive marches on the occasion. Everywhere the marches of the electorate accompanying the candidates reverberated with the call of the forming the sixth Left Front government with yet greater strength. The youth constituting a huge chunk of the marches roared with slogans calling for formation of the sixth Left Front government for greater development and bigger employment opportunities. The sizzling and scintillating marches sent strong signals of the fourth straight assembly election victory of the Left Front looming large on the state's horizon.

On the other hand, the Congress party has been severely perturbed at several places of state with rowdy uproars of the disgruntled aspirants of the party ticket and their followers since release of the first list of Congress candidates on January 29 for 53 constituencies. The second list for the remaining seven constituencies is yet to be released which will just add fuel to the flame of the ongoing factional feud.

Meanwhile, true to their customary culture about 2000 strong rabble Congress activists gathered in front of South Tripura district headquarter, Udaipur on the occasion of the filing of nomination by the party candidates of three constituencies of the district. The rabble created bottleneck in the movement of traffic and pedestrians besides manhandling rickshaw-pullers and a DYFI activist. The episode evoked strong protests from the people as also revived the memories of the semi-fascist jungle rule of the 1988-93 Congress-TUJS coalition regime. Case against three Congress activists involved in the incident was lodged in the local police station.