TRIPURA

NLFT Dictates Change In ADC, Revives Secessionist Demand

CRESTFALLEN after the electoral rout of the Congress-INPT combine and the Left Front victory in the February 26 assembly polls in Tripura, the militant outfit NLFT is busy carrying out some organisational overhaul of its overground political wing, the INPT. This is evident from the NLFT’s dictate to change the chief functionary of the INPT-controlled Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (ADC). At the same time, the INPT has also revived its demand for an autonomous state in the ADC areas which it had perforced shelved so far, of course temporarily. One will recall that the INPT had usurped the ADC with the help of NLFT guns in the May 2000 ADC elections, and the Congress party entered an alliance with the same INPT before the Lok Sabha bypoll last year --- ultimately with a view to overthrowing the Left Front government in a similar manner, by hijacking the assembly polls at the gunpoint. However, bagging only 18 seats in the 60-member state assembly against the Left Front’s 42 seats, the Congress-INPT alliance is suffering a massive erosion. The disenchanted rank and file of the Congress party as well as the INPT are now coming over to the CPI(M) statewide.

A photo copy of the NLFT’s letter of instructions to the INPT leadership recently reached the news bureau of the CPI(M)’ state organ, Daily Desher Katha. The letter made a special mention of the NLFT’s disappointment at the INPT’s miserable score in the February 26 assembly elections. The letter dated May 16, was from K Makthang alias Manu Koloi, the so-called secretary general of the outlawed NLFT, and addressed to the INPT president H Bakrang alias Bijoy Hrangkhawl. It issued to the latter the dictate to remove Kripamohan Reang from the post of ADC chief executive member, and replace him by Debabrata Koloi.

The copies of the same letter were forwarded to T Saikarong, D Naikarong and Lieutenant D Kapnai. It has been ascertained that T Saikarong and D Naikarong are the pseudonyms of INPT leaders and party think-tank Shyamacharan Tripura (MLA) and N C Debbarma (former director, All India Radio, Agartala station) respectively.

The letter summons Bijoy Hrangkhawl and his aides like Shyamacharan Tripura and N C Debbarma to a meeting with NLFT representatives with instruction to the INPT’s executive committee to implement the dictate for change of the chief functionary of the ADC. The so called “secretary general” of NLFT, Manu Koloi, herein writes to Bijoy Hrangkhawl the INPT supremo and father of all terrorism in Tripura, that the instruction for the requisite reshuffle of ADC leadership is meant for ensuring the INPT’s return to power in the next ADC polls, for overcoming the party’s current political wilderness and for mitigating the miseries of the INPT activists and of the Barak population in general. The letter dictates the requisite reshuffle in the ADC leadership also in view of the allegations levelled against it.

According to sources, as the sequel to this letter from the NLFT heavyweight Manu Koloi, a secret meeting of NLFT representatives and INPT leaders was held on May 20, in which the selection of Debabrata Koloi for the post of the ADC’s chief executive member and removal of Kripamohan Reang from the same post were okayed. Accordingly, Kripamohan Reang sent his resignation on May 21 and a special session of the ADC was slated for May 30 to appoint Debabrata Koloi in his place.

Meanwhile, addressing a function organised on the completion of the INPT’s three years in power in the ADC, the ADC chairman Hirendra Tripura announced that the INPT would launch a massive movement to press for the formation of an autonomous state in ADC areas. This is nothing but a revival of the dream cherished by the now dead IPFT and the TUJS to bifurcate the tiny Tripura into two states.  Incidentally, it was at the dictate of the NLFT that the INPT was formed through the merger of the IPFT, the TUJS (former ally of the Congress party), its splinter group TNCC and Debabrata Koloi-led THPP. The INPT’s flagship demand for a state within a state had, however, been kept in abeyance on request from the Congress party with a view to furthering the poll prospects of the Congress-INPT combine by deceiving the electorate. But since the politically and ideologically seasoned people of Tripura trounced the heinous alliance in the assembly polls and formed the fifth Left Front government, the INPT has rejuvenated this secessionist demand, obviously under the NLFT guideline. However, the Congress party is by no means in a position to give up its heinous honeymoon with the INPT. (INN)