CIVIC POLLS IN TRIPURA

 CPI(M) Call For Ensuring LF Victory

 Haripada Das

THE CPI(M) Tripura state committee called upon all its members, workers, sympathisers and general supporters to plunge into the electoral battle to ensure victory of the Party and the Left Front in the civic body elections slated to be held on December 16, 2005. Both Agartala Municipal Council and 12 Nagar Panchayats will go to polls on that day.

The state committee which met on November 23, 2005 reviewed the political situation in the state since its last session in September and noted that in view of the state’s civic body elections and village council elections in ADC area villages, violent moves and action of the secessionist extremists and their collaborators has been stepped up.

To make available urban amenities to a larger section of the people through urbanisation programme, the Left Front government had delimited the extent of area and raised the number of wards to 195 this time.

The state committee asserted that despite severe financial constraints, both the Agartala Municipal Council and all Nagar Panchayats implemented multifarious developmental projects in close understanding with the government as well as received sincere cooperation from all sections of the people. Carrying forward this spirit and the struggle for all round development of the state, including the urban areas, the Left Front partners came to a total understanding with seat adjustments and fielded the candidates in unison. The crowded attendance in the Left Front meetings and rallies indicates that the Left Front this time enjoys far more wider support than earlier, noted the Party.

Earlier, Tripura Left Front convenor and Party state secretary, Baidyanath Majumder, released the CPI(M)’s list of candidates for the ensuing civic poll at a press conference on November 17. Out of the total 195 seats in Agartala Municipal Council and 12 Nagar Panchayats, the CPI(M) released the names of candidates for 180 seats. The rest 15 have been  earmarked for the Left Front partners. Bijan Dhar, central committee member Gautam Das state secretariat member of CPI(M), Dr Brajagopal Roy, Shyamal Roy president and secretary of Forward Bloc respectively, Sudarshan Bhattacharjee, secretary, RSP Tripura state committee were also present in the press conference.

In the CPI(M) list, only 47 candidates are sitting members while the rest are new faces. Answering questions about the large scale dropping of the sitting members, the Left Front convenor explained that this was mainly because the Party had made an attempt to infuse new blood in the civic institutions and also partly due to the change in reserved constituencies in every election. Majumder also informed that CPI(M) has fielded a total of 76 women candidates, 7 more than the 69 seats reserved for women.

DEFEAT STARES AT CORRUPT CONG

The state committee noted how the Congress party, which is mired in corruption, has launched a misleading, slanderous campaign against the CPI(M) and the Left. The Congress has, once again, made alliance with utterly discredited and unprincipled forces, which are known to be the overground masks of terrorist outfits under the guise of political parties. The amount of money siphoned off by the Congress leaders during their tenure in Agartala Municipal Council during 1995-2000 is anybody’s guess. The people of the state are not so short of memory as to forget how they plundered away erstwhile Notified Area funds during their regime in 1988-93. The Congress has fielded some of those corrupt and stained persons in these elections, most of who were not even acceptable to their own people. Two Congress MLA’s of Agartala openly expressed their displeasure against nominating such discredited persons. The in-fights and differences over the nominations burst up in other places also. All these will surely lead to the resounding defeat of the Congress in these elections by the conscious people of Tripura, asserted the state committee.

The Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council is contemplating to hold village council elections in early next year as a measure to extend democracy at the grassroots level, which was an electoral commitment of the present ADC body made during the last elections. The state committee called upon its units to be fully prepared, both organisationally and politically, to ensure the victory of the Left Front and its allies in that election. It further observed that the extremists are on their heels now due to the political, ideological and administrative pressure being brought upon them. During the last two months, while three extremists were killed in an encounter and five others were arrested by the security forces, 16 hardcore extremists of both the banned outfits surrendered to the police with a good number of heavy and sophisticated weapons. At the same time, in several ghastly attacks of the extremists, a total of 22 persons, including one local committee member of the Party and five security men and others, mostly women, were killed. A section of the frustrated Congress party is hand in glove with the extremists in this abrupt spurt of violence, opined the state committee. Recently, Congress provided refuge to some detracted INPT leaders, most of who are known to have direct links with the extremist violence, the state committee stated.

The state committee called upon the peace-loving people of Tripura to take to the streets on December 3, 2005 in rallies and processions in all parts of the state to further alienate the political parties patronising the secessionist extremist and vested interests. The Party called upon the people to also refute the misinformation and malign campaign resorted to by the opposition parties and stress for the demand for deployment of adequate security forces for effectively combating the extremists.

At the outset, the state committee paid homage to K Narayanan, former president of India, Comrade Saroj Chanda, Comrade Narendra Kumar  Sinha, Cormade Jugal Debbarma, Comrade Laxmi Bisweswari Jamatia, all divisional committee members or former DCMs  of the Party, the victims of earthquake in Kashmir, in either side of India and Pakistan, and the persons who fell victims at the hands of the extremists in the state since the last session.

IMPRESSIVE RALLY OF WOMEN

A vibrant rally of women, strongly demanding the passage of Women Reservation Bill, shook Agartala on November 21. The Shakuntala Road, the rally site seemed quite small to accommodate the huge number of rallyists who encroached the other roads too connecting to the main rally site. Such rallies and demonstrations of the women were held in every sub-divisional headquarters on the day. Party divisional leaders and AIDWA leaders addressed the gatherings.

Addressing the rally, Bijan Dhar, central committee member strongly criticised the dilly-dallying and evasive tactics adopted by both the NDA and UPA governments at the centre regarding this important legislation. Except the Left parties, no bourgeoisie political party is sincerely committed in seeing through this bill, said Dhar. All their tall claims of being pro-women is with an eye on their poll prospects, he said. Dhar also rejected the prime minister’s proposal for enhancing the number of seats in parliament and state legislatures by one-third because that would create many adverse implications, political, financial and in respect of the ongoing delimitation process. As regards the consensus on the Bill, if consensus is not required for handing over country’s assets to the foreign hands, why is it required for ensuring women’s right, he quipped. He concluded by stressing upon the need to launch a more stronger movement in future to wrest the legitimate right of the women from a conservative government which is keen not to get out of feudalistic set up.

Chhaya Bal, Samar Adhya both state committee members and Tapan Das, Ranabir Debbarma were among those who addressed the rally.