TRIPURA

 Party Forges Ahead In Teeth Of Ceaseless Challenges

Baidyanath Majumder

SINCE the 17th congress of the CPI(M), the biggest and toughest challenge confronting the Party in Tripura was that of the February 2003 assembly elections. In a bid to overthrow the Left Front government in Tripura, the Congress party entered into a politico-electoral alliance with armed separatist militants sponsored by imperialist forces. Conspiring to dislodge the Left Front from power by capturing the assembly in the style of the usurpation of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council at extremist gunpoint in May 2000, the internal and international vested interests forged a grand alliance of the Congress party and the INPT – the political mask of the outlawed extremist organisation, NLFT – and a tribal community based regional party. The combine deployed extremists from the neighbouring Bangladesh territory in the tribal inhabited constituencies on the one hand, and poured money to purchase the common people’s vote on the other. Most of the media tried to mislead the people by massively maligning the Left Front government. Taking for granted their capacity to capture power, leadership of the Congress-led alliance even fixed up the list and portfolios of cabinet members!

But banking on the high political prudence of the people, the mass political stronghold which the CPI(M) has built up by means of ceaselessly fighting in favour of the tribal and non-tribal toiling masses of Tripura, strengthening the bond of ethnic unity and integrity and through the martyrdom of innumerable comrades, the Party succeeded in triumphing over the tough challenge from the reactionary forces at the assembly elections. Though it lost some seats because of the violent atrocities by the extremists, the Left Front formed its fifth government by attaining more than two-thirds majority in the assembly.

With the Left Front victory in the assembly elections, which reinforced the Party’s self-confidence and triggered tremendous frustration and erosion in the ranks of the vested interests, a call was given from the May 2003 extended session of the Party’s state committee to expand the Party’s political influence and mass base by 5 per cent in the span of one year. And the Party activists transformed this resolution into a reality. In the February 2004 parliamentary polls, the CPI(M) candidates bagged more than 1.4 lakh votes in excess of those polled by them in the assembly elections. Around 25,000 families joined the Left Front camp after deserting the anti-Left Front parties, especially the Congress and the INPT, in the span of one year.

Yet another challenge confronting the Party was the general election (March 5, 2005) to the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council, (ADC), a vital constitutional body whose administrative machinery was being used for expansion of insurgency following usurpation of the ADC in the year 2000. Giving a fervent call for wresting the ADC from the clutch of extremists, the Party’s eighteenth state conference (February 15-17) declared that a repetition of the 2000 scenario shall be resisted at any cost. And all sections of the Party activists and people pressed into service their entire energy towards vindicating the declaration. The struggling people of Tripura wrote yet another glorious chapter of history by virtue of their unprecedented mandate to the Left Front and its associates in all the 28 seats of the ADC in the March 5, 2005 elections.

Such a landmark success has been achieved as a result of the Party’s aggressive position in the politico-ideological, organisational and administrative spheres as well as an appropriate electoral strategy. The Party and the Left Front improved upon their earlier success in the three-tier panchayat polls as well. The Party has been getting the unwavering support of people because of the transparent implementation of multifarious development programmes for public welfare by the Left Front government and other elected democratic bodies under the able leadership of the Party and mass organisations in every struggle of the people.

There has been a remarkable increase in the membership of the Party and the mass organisations since the last Party congress. Party membership has by now jumped to 52,000, up from 39,000 at the time of the 17th congress, and the female component in Party membership has risen to 22 per cent, while a fresh 5 lakh have been added to the mass organisations’ membership over this period.

Yet another remarkable success of the Party in Tripura in this period is the construction of a building exclusively for the Party daily newspaper, Desher Katha and the setting up of a colour offset printing machine.

The Party has adopted in the 18th state conference the programme of further consolidating its organisational activities. The programme aims at increasing the Party’s political-ideological activities, as well as expanding the Party daily’s circulation and the Party’s mass base by making at least one Party supporter per family in the span of the next three years.

(The writer is secretary of CPI(M) Tripura state committee)