TRIPURA

CPI(M) To Field Same Lok Sabha Team

THE CPI(M) has decided to field its two sitting MPs – Bajuban Reang and Khagen Das for the coming Lok Sabha elections from Tripura. Announcing this at a press conference at the CPI(M) state headquarters on February 12, Left Front convenor, Baidyanath Majumder, asserted that LF will sweep the elections in Tripura. He said the LF lays utmost emphasis on formation of a secular government at the centre.

Bajuban Reang had won from the Tripura East (ST) constituency in 1980, 1984, 1996, 1998 and 1999. Khagen Das contested and won from the Tripura West constituency in a bye-election in 2002, occasioned by the demise of CPI(M) MP Samar Choudhury. Both these candidates were members of the state cabinet during the first and second Left Front governments of Tripura. Marches were taken out the same evening at several places in the state in support of the two Left Front candidates to mark the announcement of their nomination.

Describing the background of the upcoming parliamentary polls, Baidyanath Majumder said that the nefarious BJP and its saffron brigade must be prevented from coming back to power in order to save the country. He said the BJP-led NDA government’s tenure has damaged every sphere –secularism, sovereignty, federal structure, economic self-reliance, foreign policy, constitutional values etc.

THRUST ON SECULARISM

Saying that the BJP got strengthened primarily due to Congress party’s prolonged anti-people policy, corruption, and soft Hindutva approach, Baidyanath asserted that the ongoing campaign against the Congress party, the main political opponent of the Left Front in Tripura, will continue. However, the main thrust in the campaign would be on ensuring the triumph of secular forces in the country.

On the Congress party’s ally in the state, the INPT joining hands with the BJP-led NDA for the coming polls, the CPI(M) state secretariat member, Gautam Das, remarked that this highlights the unprincipled politics of both the Congress and the BJP. Incidentally, the INPT, the over ground political wing of the outlawed extremist organisation NLFT, had been an ally of the Congress party since 2000. It allied with the Congress after usurping the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (ADC) at NLFT gun point in the polls. The INPT was, however, removed from the ADC last year after its vertical split and the formation of a new party NSPT under the ceaseless pressure of mass movement against the unprecedented corruption and collapse of the INPT-led ADC administration. The NSPT is now ruling the ADC with outside support from the CPI(M).