Agartala: Amid violence and attacks, Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance (TIPRA) Chairman and royal scion Pradyot Kishore Debbarman along with his team last evening called on Governor Ramesh Bais with the claim of forming a council in Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (ADC) after being elected as Chief Executive Member.
He explained that TIPRA alone won 16 seats in 28 –members ADC while its ally Indigenous National Party of Twipra (INPFT) begged for two seats. The ruling BJP although somehow managed to win nine seats, its partner in the government Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT) reduced to zero like CPI-M and Congress.
The State Election Commission (SEC) said a new council of ADC has to be formed before the middle of the next month and therefore, the commission has been doing the process meticulously. The notification for the new council is expected to be issued by this week and accordingly, the Governor will make the final decision for the swearing-in ceremony at ADC headquarters Khumlung, SEC officials stated.
However, Pradyot said that they would not organise any victory rally and swearing-in ceremony would also be very brief considering the second wave of Covid-19 and said, “The money which we would have been spent for victory rallies or mega oath-taking ceremony, I prefer to keep the amount for helping the people in case of health or education emergency or community development.”
He reiterated that TIPRA has restrained its supporters from indulging in violence and attacking others but the party has also been trying to identify the perpetrators involved in the notorious acts and if anybody of TIPRA found involved in such activities he will not only be expelled from the party, also be booked under law.
According to the report, a large number of BJP and IPFT workers across the state who have been accused of criminal activities and extortion since 2018 after BJP-IPFT came to power were targeted after both parties miserably lost the election. In some cases, BJP and IPFT workers attacked each other blaming for the defeat.
Over a thousand party offices of CPI-M, Congress and INPT were destroyed by BJP and IPFT hooligans in the last three years and more than 50,000 people were attacked and their ration cards, social pensions and other benefits have been snatched away in the last three years. The victims supported TIPRA in this election just to survive the atrocities of the ruling front.
“A large number of CPI-M and Congress besides, the deprived section of BJP and IPFT voted Pradyot Kishore to power. And, now some of them have become revengeful to the persons who tortured them for three years. Many of them have to leave the villages leaving behind huge properties, shops. A large number of rubber estates of opposition supporters were set ablaze and after TIPRA won they resorted to counter attacks,” said a senior police official.
He also stated that in the rural areas people become hostile if seeing BJP and IPFT leaders nowadays. The party president Dr Manik Saha, Loksabha MP Pratima Bhowmik, several top leaders of the party and ministers were chased away by the villagers yesterday in various areas when they had gone to visit the violence-hit districts.
The BJP and IPFT miscreants have also hurt the sentiment of the people of Tripura soon after coming to power. They destroyed the statue of Lenin, Karl Marx and veteran communist leader Baidynath Majumdar and Dasarath Deb. Biplab Kumar Deb government arrested veteran CPI-M leader and former minister Badal Chowdhury and former Chief Secretary Y P Singh on false cases of corruption, the people took revenge when they found a scope, the official added.
