People's Democracy

METTING yet another milestone in the Left Front’s ceaseless battle to keep the extremists’ bullets from blemishing the ballot, the electorate in Tripura has given a massive mandate to the Left Front candidate Khagen Das in the February 21 bypoll to the Tripura West Lok Sabha constituency. According to the result announced on February 25 morning, Das defeated his nearest rival, the Congress-INPT combine’s Manik Deb, by a massive margin of 1.48 lakh votes. The third in the fray was the Trinamul Congress-BJP combine’s Sudhir Ranjan Majumdar, a former chief minister, who lost his deposit. Six other candidates also lost deposits.

Significantly, the Left Front has won this seat for the fourth time in a row. The latest bypoll was necessitated by the death of the CPI(M)-Left Front’s sitting member, Comrade Samar Chowdhury. In this bypoll, Khagen Das, currently a CPI(M) member in Rajya Sabha, polled 3,91,482 votes as against the 2,43,868 votes polled by the Congress-INPT combine. The Trinamul-BJP nominee came a poor third with only 33,383 votes.

The state Left Front committee has heartily hailed the electorate for this vigorous verdict in favour of its candidate. The committee said the verdict reflected the profound positive groundswell of people’s support for the Left Front’s indomitable struggle against the extremists and fissiparous forces, and for upholding ethnic unity, for an all-round development of the state with priority to the remote areas. The verdict was also a reflection of the people’s intense hatred against the unprincipled electoral alliance of the Congress with the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT). It will be noted that the INPT is the political wing of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), an imperialist-sponsored outlawed terrorist organisation that is playing havoc with peace and security in the state. The verdict was a rebuff to the Congress-INPT combine’s various corrupt practices during the run-up to the polls, the Left Front statement said.

Incidentally, a heinous conspiracy came to the media’s notice a few days ago, in form of the Congress-INPT leadership’s nocturnal secret meeting with the Assam Rifles top brass in Agartala. (See People’s Democracy, February 24 issue.) The meeting was, evidently, aimed at falsifying the mandate at extremist gunpoint, the same way the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (ADC) was usurped by the IPFT at extremist gunpoint in the May 2000 polls. It will be noted that Brigadier B K Panwar of the Assam Rifles had then openly hobnobbed with the IPFT-NLFT leaders during the run-up to the May 2000 ADC polls.

Analysing the result of the February 21 parliamentary bypoll according to assembly segments, the Left Front said the result clearly proved how the IPFT had usurped the ADC. The Left Front has wrested 9 out of 12 assembly segments where the Congress-TUJS combine had won in the 1998 assembly polls. Even in the remaining 3 segments, the Congress-INPT combine has retained its lead by extremely meagre margins.

Incidentally, INPT is the new name the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) gave to itself on the eve of this parliamentary bypoll, after its merger with the Tripura Upajati Juba Samiti (TUJS). Although the Congress made a show of fielding its candidates in the May 2000 ADC polls, it desisted from any worthwhile electioneering and even assisted the IPFT in several ways.

The February 25 Left Front statement also pointed out how numerous Left Front supporters in several tribal belts could not exercise their franchise in the bypoll due to the death threats doled out by the outlawed NLFT and ATTF extremists. Yet the total votes polled by the Left Front have gone up in comparison with the 1999 parliamentary polls.

The Left Front deemed this massive mandate as a tremendous boost to the fighting spirit of the state’s tribal and non-tribal people against the unholy alliance of the Congress with the pro-extremist INPT as well as against the anti-people communal alliance of the Trinamul Congress with the BJP. The Left Front fervently asked the bold brigade of its activists to consolidate and further intensify their ongoing political, ideological and organisational campaigns so as to ensure a similar Left Front victory in the next assembly elections, a year away from now. (INN)