People's Democracy

TRIPURA

Congress Threatens

To Forcibly Unseat Left Front

Haripada Das

Rahul Sinha

ON May 24 evening, the Tripura state committee of the CPI(M) convened a press conference at its state headquarters in Agartala to condemn the Congress threat of violence. One notes that at a press conference addressed by the Congress leadership on May 23, party spokesman Ratan Chakraborty had bluntly blurted out that since the Left Front government could not be dislodged by democratic means, it must be dragged down by hook or by crook.

YET ANOTHER

PLOT IN OFFING!

At the May 24 press conference, CPI(M) state secretary Bijan Dhar and state secretariat member Gautam Das vehemently condemned the threatening strategies of the Congress party as reflected in the statement made by Ratan Chakraborty. The latter’s statement, the CPI(M) leaders said, was nothing but a corroboration of the violent atrocities that took place during the 12-hour bandh called for by the Congress on May 23.

The CPI(M) maintained that the threat was clearly in line with the series of internal and international conspiracies against the Left in India, ever since a conspiracy was hatched to dislodge the first communist government in the country in 1957-59. As we know, the conspiracy of the 1950s was followed by other sinister moves in the seventies in West Bengal, in the eighties in Tripura, and the notorious arms drop for extremists in West Bengal in 1995 with help from the then Congress government at the centre. Frustrated after the failure of even its heinous attempts to halt to state’s development by using the armed extremist groups, despite the financial deprivation caused to the state by the 13th Finance Commission recommendations, the Congress party now seems to have chalked out a blueprint to drag down the pro-people Left Front government in Tripura that has achieved spectacular successes in rushing relief to the toiling masses in the teeth of formidable constraints. According to Bijan Dhar, while the gravest danger to democracy and development is from bourgeois parties like the Congress that have no faith in the people. In contrast to them, he said the Left Front government that received a massive mandate from the Tripura would strengthen its ongoing endeavour to fulfil all its commitments to the people and enlist their whole-hearted support. He also alerted the state’s populace against the series of plots and provocations that are likely to be carried out in the state in near future, by those who want to vitiate the political scenario here. 

VITIATING THE

ATMOSPHERE

On the day, Tripura was stirred with a series of strident protests coming from the CPI(M) and the peace-loving, democratic-minded people of the state against the heinous efforts of the Congress party to unleash anarchy all over the state. The ugly face of such forces was evident the day before, on May 23, when the NSUI, the Congress party’s student front, called for a 12-hour Tripura  Bandh with a view to smoke-screening the NSUI storm-troopers’ crime of vitiating the atmosphere in educational institutions of the state.

Incidentally, in order to enthuse the Congress party in Tripura, hot on the heels of the recent electoral defeat of the Left in West Bengal and Kerala, union home minister P Chidambaram parlayed with the state Congress leaders on May 17, and advised them to unitedly launch agitations to dislodge the perfectly stable Left Front government in the state. Evidently, acting upon his blueprint to blow up this strong base of the Left, a faction of Congress party resorted to most uncivilised attacks on the police here --- in the garb of civil disobedience at Belonia, South Tripura on May 20.

Also, with a view to serving the dual purpose of covering up his own scam pertaining to the land grab in Agartala Municipality and of encouraging the border smugglers, a Congress legislator has been creating public inconvenience by putting up road blockades. On May 21, a group of outsider hooligans, with the state NSUI state president Vicky Prasad accompanying them, launched violent attacks on the SFI-led Students Council and certain SFI activists in MBB College. Three SFI workers were injured in the scuffle while Vicky Prasad also fell down from a staircase and sustained some head injury.

Then, capitalising on this accidental fall from a staircase and resultant injury to the NSUI leader during their own scramble for attack, Congress leaders called provocative a Tripura Bandh for May 23 when a reign of terror was let loose in several educational institutions as well as against government offices, vehicles and dutiful teachers, employees, CPI(M) activists and the innocent people throughout the state.

As the NSUI, Youth Congress and PCC leadership knew very well that this bandh would not be supported by the common people, they made all-out attempts to enforce the call by open hooliganism and terror.

In the name of picketing, the Congress cadre tried to prevent the people from going to their offices and attacked the school teachers who dared to defy their edict. Congress goons brutally attacked Asim Pal, general secretary of the Tripura Government Teachers Association (H B Road), who had to be hospitalised. Even doctors were not spared. Dr Kakoli Dhar, a lady doctor of the rank of a Major in the Army Medical Core, was attacked and her car was damaged as she was on the way to her workplace. NSUI goons attacked the vehicle of ADM of West Tripura and the vehicle of the director of NIT Agartala, ransacked an ambulance, and spoiled the cooked food for the mid-day meal scheme by pouring sand into the utensils. They burnt tires in the street and attacked the workers of the State Electricity Corporation when they were going for an urgent repair work. Besides, they attacked and severely beat up a number of CPI(M) workers. Congress MLAs including Ratan Nath (leader of opposition) and Sudip Ray Barman were seen instigating the goons. But in spite all these efforts, the common people rejected the bandh call and ensured a near normal situation at most  of the places in the state.

It was at the end of this flopped bandh that Congress leaders convened a press conference in Congress Bhavan in the evening, when Ratan Chakraborty said, “It seems almost impossible to defeat this government democratically. It has to be pulled down by dragging.”

PEOPLE’S

RESPONSE

In response to the Congress bandh call, democratic movement in Tripura launched a series of vociferous protest marches and meetings in order to thwart the efforts to vitiate the prevailing atmosphere of peace and progress in the state. At Agartala, the marches called for by the CPI(M) merged into a huge rally in the downtown Shakuntala Road. The TGTA (H B Road) and other employees’ associations organised big protest marches in several sub-divisions of the state.

At Agartala, the state capital, teachers of several schools braved the rain and thunderstorm in order to parade through the streets, shouting protest slogans against the violent threats and atrocities of the Congress activists in schools and colleges the day before. Following their street corner meeting at Paradise Chowmuhani, their leaders met the District Superintendent of Police in a deputation and demanded stern and speedy action against the miscreants responsible for the violent attacks on May 23.

On the day, school students boycotted classes and took out spontaneous marches in Agartala through the streets, protesting against the attack on their teachers.

Tripura Employees Coordination Committee (H B Road) too organised protest actions all over the state during the midday recess.

Four leftist student and youth organisations --- SFI, DYFI, TSU and TYF --- organised protest actions a day later.

At its crowded press conference on May 24, the CPI(M) decried the comment made by the Congress spokesman, and said it showed the undemocratic attitude of the Congress leadership. This poses a great threat to the democracy, Bijan Dhar said. What the Congress leader intends to tell is they cannot depend on elections to defeat the Left Front, nor have they any faith in the democratic sense of the masses. They wish to unseat this popularly elected government by use of crude force. Bijan Dhar said the assertions of Kim Davy have confirmed our suspicion that the then PM had armed the extremists in Tripura in order to unseat the popular Left Front government of the state, and that the Purulia arms drop was a part of the same ploy in West Bengal.

Dhar also accused the central government led by the Congress with attempting to curb the democratic rights of the people. It is trying to take away the hard earned trade union rights of the working class to appease the international finance capital and the indigenous monopoly capital. The entire seeds market is being opened for the multinationals; the banks, pension funds, insurance sector and public sector enterprises are being sold out. The prices of petrol has been hiked for the ninth time in a year; next on the agenda are diesel and LPG. Only the Left is protesting these anti-people steps and also opposing the mortgage of our national sovereignty for a strategic tie-up with the US. That is why the Congress and its central government are they colluding with the CIA and other foreign agencies to break the opposition coming from the communists. Dhar appealed to the democratic and peace loving masses of Tripura to be united and vigilant against any such foul attempt by the Congress, warning the latter too that its antics would only alienate it further from the people.

Addressing the mediapersons, CPI(M) state secretariat member Gautam Das said that the Congress has no reason to be overjoyed by the outcome of the assembly results. In Tamilnadu, people have taught the DMK-Congress alliance a good lesson for its corruption. In Kerala, the power hungry Congress has been having an electoral alliance with a communal force like the Muslim League, and in Assam it utilised the secessionist ULFA to come to power. The Congress would do well to remember that it got only 28 per cent of the votes polled in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. People all over the country are fighting against the economic policies of the central government and more fierce struggles of the working people are in the offing, Das added.