People's Democracy

TRIPURA

CPI(M) Asks Cadres To Plunge Into Flood Relief

IN its session held on July 26 morning, the CPI(M)’s Tripura state committee issued a fervent call for the activists and supporters of the party to swing into action towards making the cleanest sweep of the state’s three tier panchayat elections that are barely three weeks away, as also to plunge into rescue and relief work regarding the more than one lakh families that were affected recently by a major flash flood statewide. Also, the party’s state committee unanimously endorsed the state secretariat’s June 18 resolution, adopted in the presence of Polit Bureau member Prakash Karat, to relieve five ministers of the party in Tripura so as to curtail the size of the cabinet in pursuance of the 97th amendment to the constitution.

The one-day session started with the state committee condoling and paying homage to the departed veteran Polit Bureau member Comrade E K Nayanar, Central Committee member Ram Sumer Yadav, state committee member Hasmai Reang, veteran party member Comrade Suresh Telanga, the state’s leading and veteran political personality Aghore Debbarma, Comrade Haradhan Sharma who was an outstanding leader of a CITU affiliated organisation in the state, as also the party activists and security personnel killed in extremist attacks since the last session of the state committee.

Deliberating on the party’s political and organisational preparedness for the panchayat polls slated for July 18, the state committee’s session urged its activists and supporters to swing into this vital electoral struggle for effective implementation of various developmental programmes in rural Tripura and for safeguarding and spreading the democratic rights of the people. There should not be slightest self-complacence in respect of ensuring a massive mandate for the candidates of the CPI(M) and other Left Front  constituents, the party cautioned.

Incidentally, while at present the Left Front holds nearly 80 per cent of the panchayats in the state, the parliamentary polls last month virtually wiped out the opposition in each and every assembly segment in the state.

The CPI(M) state committee also took stock of the recent furious flood in Tripura due to excessive rainfall and asked the state government as also the activists of the party and the mass organisations led by it, at all levels, to stand by the three and a half lakh affected people statewide. The state committee condoled the death of an activist of the democratic teachers’ movement due to this flash flood.

Also, the party’s state committee unanimously decided to relieve the animal resource development minsiter Narayan Rupini, the commerce and industry minister Pabitra Kar, fisheries and transport minister Sukumar Barman, panchayat minister Subodh Das and urban development Minister Sudhir Das. While the first mentioned is a state secretariat member of the party, the other four are state committee members. Following the said decision, all the five ministers sent their resignation letters to the chief minister Manik Sarkar so as to enable him to reshuffle the portfolios among twelve cabinet ministers, the highest permissible size of the state cabinet in accordance with the 97th constitution amendment. Later, the primitive group programme minister Manidnra Reang of the CPI also sent his resignation letter in compliance with the CPI(M) state committee’s request to relieve him so as to curtail the size of the cabinet from 18 to 12. (INN)