THE HONEYMOON IS OVER

ON March 9, the BJP-IPFT coalition government in Tripura started its second year in office.  The government led by Biplab Kumar Deb and 8 of his colleagues in the cabinet had taken oath of office and secrecy in presence of PM Modi.  As is the political practice in our country the first six months of a newly elected government is the honeymoon period when the new political executives remain  busy in receiving congratulations and felicitations and getting adapted to the nuances of running the government. After the 'honeymoon' is over the actual and proper functioning of the government resume. From that point of view the time elapsed is short to make a comprehensive assessment of the performance of the government. But the period of one year is definitely enough to get a clear idea of the political philosophy and direction of the government and its areas of priorities that follow those philosophy and trajectory.  

FASCIST LIKE ATTACKS ON DEMOCRACY 

What has been the most significant change the state has gone through in this one year? There may be difference of opinion on other issues, but on this question all will admit in one voice that the past one year is marked with a systematic, continuous attack on all the democratic rights and civil liberties of the people. The spree of violence and terror against  the opposition in general and the CPI(M) led Left Front in particular which began from the evening of  March 3 of 2018, immediately after  the results of the  assembly elections were declared is continuing unabated till date. Six of the CPI(M) leaders, members and supporters have been brutally murdered. Thousands have been injured, hundreds of houses have been attacked and ransacked, monetary fines worth crores of rupees have been imposed. Shops, paddies, fish from ponds have been plundered, rubber plantations have been gutted.  Hundreds of CPI(M) leaders and workers have been forced to flee from their area of residence and live in other places, even leave the state to save their lives.  Hundreds of party offices of CPI(M) and other opposition parties, offices of trade unions,  some of them even 40-50 years old, have been destroyed using bulldozers by the administration on the  flimsy ground that they are on vested lands. The affected were not given even a fair chance of defence in the court of law, leave alone any compensation or an alternative place to set up a new office. In the Left Front era too there have been instances when government lands where offices of  opposition parties  were built had to be taken over for development purpose. But in each case the affected were given an alternative piece of land with due compensation. Even after one year a district committee office of CPI(M),  a few subdivision committee offices and number of local committee offices  could not be opened due to saffron  terror.  Leader of opposition,  Manik Sarkar,  deputy  leader Badal Choudhury,  MLAs, MPs have been obstructed or attacked while going to  attend pre-announced programmes. Police often denies permissions to hold rallies and meetings or withdraws it at the last hour. 

Terror was so intense that the Left Front had to withdraw its candidate from the  by-election to the Charilam assembly constituency. More than 50 per cent of the total sitting members of three tier panchayats and urban local bodies has been forced to resign. The by-elections were made a complete farce with BJP winning more than 96 per cent of the seats uncontested in panchayats while not even allowing to submit nomination papers in five urban local bodies. 

Daily Desher Katha's circulation have been badly hit as buses plying from motor stands have been threatened by BJP hoodlums not to transport the paper, it is not getting the due share of government advertisements, reporters, agents, hawkers and even the subscribers have faced physical attacks. And what is unprecedented and not witnessed even during the internal emergency of 1975, the publication of the paper  was forcefully stopped for nine days at a stretch by an authoritarian administrative order. In the recently concluded Agartala book fair the stall of Chhatra Sangbad, the organ of SFI Tripura state committee was closed down without any valid reason. The paper resumed publication after High Court stayed the government order; the stall too was opened as the High Court gave its verdict in favour of SFI. But all these incidents clearly show the fascistic, undemocratic attitude of the government. 

BETRAYED PROMISES AND THE PLIGHT OF THE PEOPLE

The BJP in its vision document for the assembly elections made a host of tall promises to lure the people. No doubt these lucrative promises were one of the major reasons for BJP's electoral success. 

But one year later, it is now clear that all the promises were mere empty rhetoric as none of them have been fulfilled. The promise was to extend and implement the benefits of the 7th CPC(central pay commission) on the first cabinet meeting of the government. But it took almost seven months to implement the fitment factor of 7th CPC.  In official terms it’s the Tripura state pay matrix without the allowances available for the central government. This too is for the government employees alone. The employees of the state PSUs and ULBs are not getting it.

The universal post retirement pension scheme which the Left Front government was implementing has been replaced by a contributory new pension scheme as per the neo-liberal economic policy. 

The promise was to give around 50,000 government jobs within one year.  But in reality barring a few appointments as medical officers no recruitment has taken place.  Rather recruitment process for almost 9,000 posts initiated by the TPSC  during the Left Front's tenure has been held up. There is a virtual ban on government recruitments; the promise of regularising all the contractual employees and scheme based workers has been forgotten. Instead of any government employment , outsourcing of staff is being officially encouraged. Hundreds of mid day meal workers have been sacked without any valid reason. The Left Front government was running 33 types of  social pensions for around 4.30 lakh people, the amount ranged from  Rs 700 to Rs1000. Instead of fulfilling the promise of enhancing the amount to Rs 2,000, in  the last budget it was increased to mere 1000,  while names of at least 30-40 per cent of the beneficiaries were struck off. Leave alone increasing the wage of MNREGA  to Rs 340,  people in rural areas are not even getting more  than 40 days of job and the Rs 177 a day.

The dark days of poverty, hunger, starvation deaths, mortgaging ration cards, selling children in the  tribal areas which were a daily phenomenon are back after decades. 

THE WAY AHEAD 

The anarchy is at galore,  the fascist like terror is the order of the day.  But that’s not without a reason. The ruling party knew from the beginning that they won't be able to fulfill any of their election ‘jumlas’. They knew from the beginning that the people will see through their empty  promises and the opposition especially the CPI(M) and the Left will rally the people to expose the government and lead  the people's struggle for life and livelihood, for  realising the promises and for restoration of democracy. That is the reason that these terror tactics continue so that frightened people don’t dare to speak out and unite against the ruling government and its policies. 

But despite all the terror, threat and intimidation, people are coming out, speaking up, leaving behind fear.  The protest rallies are getting longer; people united are getting ready for struggles and give a befitting reply in the upcoming Lok Sabha election itself, if the ECI can ensure a free, fair and peaceful poll.