People's Democracy

CPI(M) MEMO TO ELECTION COMMISSION

 Tighten Security For Polls, Familiarise People With EVMs

ON November 29, the CPI(M) made a strong plea to the Election Commission to rise to unprecedented threat to the prospect of holding free and fair elections to Tripura assembly. Submitting a memorandum on the day to the deputy election commissioner Shayan Chatterjee, when he was on a two-day visit to the state, CPI(M)’s state secretariat members, Lok Sabha member Khagen Das and CITU state secretary Manik Dey reiterated the demand for deployment of adequate security forces in the state. At the same time, they also demanded a comprehensive familiarisation programme statewide, especially in the hills and villages of Tripura, on the working and use of electronic voting machines (EVMs).

Arriving in Agartala on the day, alongwith the commission’s consultant K G Rao, Shayan Chattarjee met the representatives of 8 political parties at the Conference Hall of the Civil Secretariat. The purpose was to discuss with these parties various issues pertaining to the conduct of the coming assembly polls, before the visitors met the top officials of state administration and police. Later on, leaders of various political parties submitted their memorandums to the team at the Circuit House.

The CPI(M)’s memorandum pointed out the bitter reality that combating the extremists in Tripura has of late become a tremendously tough task for the state government because of the alliance between the Congress and the INPT, the outlawed extremist organisation NLFT’s overground political wing. In this connection, the memorandum also recalled that during the last assembly elections in February 1998, three battalions of army jawans were deployed alongwith paramilitary forces for counter-insurgency operations. But subsequently the centre unilaterally withdrew all the three army battalions and a part of the paramilitary forces including the Border Security Force (BSF). Even in the ongoing winter session of parliament, the external affairs minister and the home minister cum deputy prime minister admitted that from across the border the ISI was sponsoring a bid to scuttle the election process in the state. Under the circumstances, hemmed in by an 856 km long borderline with Bangladesh, coupled with the extreme inadequacy of the BSF personnel, Tripura is facing an unprecedented threat that, operating from their sanctuaries in Bangladesh, extremists and mercenary miscreant gangs may try to vitiate the poll process at the gun point.

Incidentally, the INPT usurped the Tripura Autonomous District Council (ADC) in the May 2000 election with the help of NLFT extremists. The absolute absence of the army and the virtual work-to-rule of the inadequate paramilitary forces in the state only helped them in this usurpation job.

Pointing out that electronic voting machines are going to be used all over the state for the first time in the ensuing assembly polls, the CPI(M)’s memorandum strongly demanded an intensive and extensive familiarisation programme on how these sophisticated machines work. This must be done without any delay and with beefed-up security for the purpose, the CPI(M) memorandum added.

On the other hand, the anti-Left Front parties, including the Congress, demanded in a body that the polls be conducted under president’s rule and with deployment of the paramilitary like Assam Rifles, instead of the army, and after removing the Special Police Officers (SPOs) from the scene. Incidentally, the SPOs under the state police are doing an excellent job toward containing and countering terrorism in Tripura, while a section of the Assam Rifle’s top brass has been colluding with the Congress-INPT combine since the 2000 ADC polls.

During the all-party meeting with the deputy election commissioner at the Civil Secretariat, CPI(M) representatives also drew his attention to the November 27 incident at Burakha under Sadar subdivision in West Tripura, in which Assam Rifles jawans and INPT activists severely beat up CPI(M) supporters at a market place, without any reason, and kidnapped and illegally confined one of them in the Assam Rifles camp, alongwith his motorbike, for more than 24 hours. (INN)