TRIPURA PANCHAYAT POLLS

LF Registers Massive Victory

THE people of Tripura have yet again reposed faith in the Left Front by ensuring a massive victory for it in the state’s three-tier panchayat polls. The overwhelming verdict in favour of the Left Front is a confirmation of the rural people’s urge to strengthen the ongoing process of ensuring peace and progress. The entire rural Tripura was rocked by rejoicing rallies of the LF as the results started pouring in on July 21.

The elections were held on on July 18 for 5,252 seats in 513 gram panchayats, 299 seats in 23 panchayat samities and 82 seats in 4 zilla parishads, one in each district. Out of these the Left Front has won in 4,797 seats in gram panchayats, 285 seats in panchayat samities and a whopping 81 seats in zilla parishads. The Congress won the one remaining zilla parishad seat. The LF gained absolute majority in all the 23 panchayat samities and the four zilla parishads. (see accompanying table)

The irresponsible and instigating words and deeds unleashed by a section of the state’s Congress leadership ever since the inception of the panchayat poll process, had made clear their dread, despair and desperation regarding these vital rural polls. There was no doubt that they were bent on bloodshed to camouflage their increasing alienation from the people. They resorted to all sorts of undemocratic means in a futile bid to stall the poll process and weaken the unassailable mass base of the CPI(M) and the Left in Tripura.  Ultimately, the Pradesh Congress Committee president himself shot dead the son of a CPI(M) leader at Baburbazar of Kailashahar in North Tripura, on July 20, when re-poll was going on in a booth in this area due to the turmoil triggered by some Congress goons on July 18, the panchayat poll date in Tripura. Due to intense pressure of the local people who were eyewitnesses to the murder, Birjit Sinha was arrested by the police on charge of killing a CPI(M) activist, firing on two other activists and causing the death of a police personnel who was one of his bodyguards at the time. He was remanded to jail custody for 14 days along with his five aides who had sought to similarly strike terror in the area by firing indiscriminately on the innocent and unarmed people when the above incident took place.

Sweeping aside such stray but heinous attempts of the discredited state leadership of the Congress party, the people of rural Tripura have given a massive mandate for the Left Front once again.

The surging support for the Left Front in rural Tripura is further testified by the sizeable number of seats wrested by the Left Front from the Congress in this election. In respect of the seats, the results for which have been declared so far, the Left Front has wrested 34 village panchayats statewide from the Congress party where the latter had won in the 1999 panchayat polls. The Left Front has also wrested another 5 village panchayats where neither the Left Front nor the Congress had got a clear majority in the 1999 polls. Furthermore, in the 1999 polls the Congress had won 29 panchayat samity seats and 3 zilla parishad seats, but all of these have now gone to the Left Front.

The massive corruption and absolute collapse of development activities in the handful of Congress-led panchayats in the state during the last five years, have cost the party dearly in the panchayat polls 2004, giving a massive mandate to the Left Front to push the momentum of democracy and development ahead. The process of development in rural Tripura received a significant momentum in the panchayat polls statewide in 1994 when too the people had severely punished the Congress-TUJS combine. One will note that the latter had dissolved all the elected panchayats and other local bodies immediately after capturing power through an unprecedented falsification of the people’s will in the 1988 assembly polls, and these bodies remained dissolved during the five years of the coalition regime in 1988-93.

In a statement issued on July 22, the Tripura Left Front committee hailed the rural people of the state for massively electing the Left Front candidates in all tiers of the panchayat election. The number of seats won by the Left Front this time is more than that in the 1999 polls in all tiers. Except in some gram panchayats, the Left Front has improved its position in all tiers. It has attained a majority in 95 per cent of the gram panchayats, and also retained all the panchayat samities and zila parishads in the state.

The statement said through this poll verdict, the people of Tripura have proclaimed their desire to struggle for maintaining peace and democracy and for carrying forward the process of progress of the state. Highly valuing the increased faith and trust reposed in it, the Left Front assured the people that, with a still greater sense of responsibility, it would advance their struggle for a better life. The Left Front also extended cooperation to all the panchayat bodies, irrespective of party affiliations, in their drive to make them more accessible to the people and to maintain peace and harmony in rural areas. (INN)

Gram Panchayats