People's Democracy

MEETING at Agartala on December 28-29, the CPI(M)'s Tripura state committee has asked its workers and supporters to plunge into action for yet another battle, this time for Village Council elections, with full political and organisational preparedness. One still remembers how the people of urban areas in the state had given a strong mandate for the Left Front in the recently held civic polls.

Encouraged by this positive verdict of the urban population, the CPI(M) state committee urged upon its workers and supporters to leave no stone unturned in order to ensure victory in the ensuing Village Council elections of ADC areas. At the same time, the committee reiterated its call to the misguided youth still sticking to the wrong track of extremism, to realise the futility of their cause and evaluate the situation on the basis of their own experiences. The CPI(M) said there still is scope to abjure arms, return to the peaceful democratic process and join the developmental activities of the Left Front government in the tribal dominated ADC areas.

it will be noted that it is the first time that Village Council elections are going to be held since the formation of Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC, or ADC in short) under the sixth schedule of the constitution. The CPI(M) state committee was confident that, just like the splendid victory in the March 2005 ADC elections when the Left Front won all the 28 seats, the people would overwhelmingly support the Left Front in these grass-roots level elections as well.

While reviewing the situation in state, the CPI(M) state committee observed that a section of the INPT and the Congress party are trying to have a secret pact with extremists in some places in Tripura in order to disrupt the smooth and peaceful conduct of these elections. The committee urged the people to keep alert about these forces that stand against development, peace, amity and democracy, and unitedly foil any subversive activities of these forces.

The state committee reviewed the recently held civic poll results in the state. It was a unique and significant victory in all the civic bodies, particularly the Agartala Municipal Council where the Left Front won 30 out of 35 seats in the face of unbridled slanders and lies resorted to by the Congress and other opposition parties. While the Left Front secured a comprehensive majority in all the civic bodies, it could also increase its number of seats as well as percentage of votes in Agartala Municipal Council and all Nagar Panchayats except in Kamalpur and Sonamura.

In its election campaign for civic polls, the Left Front highlighted the completed and ongoing developmental works under its government, creation of a healthy atmosphere in urban areas, Tripura's position on the scale of progress and people's empowerment. While the Left Front government is making sincere endeavours to provide more amenities to the urban people and generate jobs in spite of serious fund constraints, the anti-people policies pursued by the central government are having an adverse impact on the state. The Left Front also underlined the Congress party’s unprincipled alliance with INPT, which is known as the political mask of the outlawed NLFT extremists. Both the parties have, to their (dis)credit, innumerable shameful cases of corruption, misdeed and maladministration during their tenure in government as well as in ADC.

At the same time, the Congress has also been trying to run a distasteful slanderous campaign on the so-called lawlessness and on the allegations of corruption against the chief minister and some other ministers of the Left Front government. These allegations have been ridiculed by even a section of the Congress followers.

The CPI(M) state committee condoled the demise of cultural front leader Hiralal Sengupta, employees leader and former state committee member Bhubaneswar Dey, senior GMP leader Mangal Debbarma and the scientist who fell victim to the terrorist attack at Indian Institute of Sciences at Bangalore. (INN)