THE grave terror situation in BJP-ruled Tripura has by this time attracted the attention of the entire country. Democratic rights of common people are denied and trampled down; any dissenting voice is muted by rude force. Media persons, intellectuals and even doctors, engineers and officers – all are under wrath of the ruling party miscreants. In a word, Indian constitution is just not in operation in this tiny state of Tripura. CPI(M), being the prime opposition force has to bear the brunt of the attack most. Hundreds of Party offices have been gutted, bulldozed or severely ransacked. Deadly physical attacks on Party members and supporters are organised almost every day. There is a virtual ban imposed on all activities of CPI(M) in the whole state.

Under such a horrific situation, CPI(M) has undertaken the holding of conferences right from branch level.  Most of the branch conferences have been completed throughout the state by September last. By now the local committee conferences are going to be over. Some of the local committee conferences had to be shifted to comparatively safer places outside their local areas, as the concerned areas are extremely terrorised by the ruling party goons. Even the local committees who are organising their conference within their area have had to take all possible protective measures for its smooth conduct.  By now some of the sub divisional committees have completed the conference. Attendance of the comrades in the conferences of every level is impressive. The delegates, who participated in the discussions, have depicted the hard reality of the crisis of the state and at the same time did not hesitate to criticise the leadership in a constructive way for the organisational lacuna. They also put forward valuable suggestions to strengthen organisation and fight back the terror regime. This impressive achievement in conduct of Party conferences ahead of the 23rd Party Congress was made possible by the strong dedication and determination of the Party members and sympathizers.

Karbook sub divisional committee of Gomati district is the first sub-division of the state to complete its conference on October 5, 2021 followed by sub-divisional conferences of Longthorai valley and Gandachhara on October 28 and November 14 respectively. While Jitendra Chaudhury, state secretary of the Party attended all the three sub-divisional conferences, Ratan Bhowmik, and Tapan Chakraborty attended the Karbook and Longthorai valley conferences on behalf of the state secretariat.

A number of issues concerning the common people came up in the discussions held in the conferences. The most important issue is that of acute crisis of food and employment especially in the villages. During the earlier Left Front government, welfare schemes like MGNREGA were given topmost priority. At that time, Tripura was the topper in the whole country in generating person-days per year. During 2015-16, a record of 94.46 person-days was generated in the state under MGNREGA. After BJP led government assumed power in 2018, MGNREGA suffered a drastic decline, resulting in acute crisis in employment. Whatever person-days are provided, wage payment to the workers is delayed considerably, while a sizable share of wages is misappropriated by the ruling party leaders of the village. Public distribution system too suffered badly during this regime, resulting in food crisis. During the earlier LF government, that continued for 25 years, an excellent network of black-top all-weather roads were built throughout the state resulting in easy commuting to the villages and hamlets. Most of the roads have got damaged severely in the last 43 months of the BJP-led government. Even the only national highway has become unusable at places. Road transport has practically become a nightmare. Education has suffered the worst owing to the whimsical attitude of the government. Health infrastructure has practically collapsed in the state. Many PHCs and hospitals are running with acute shortage of doctors and nurses. Anti-people policies and activities have resulted in acute distress for the common people. In addition to all the woes, the government is moving ahead with fascist mindset and divisive agenda. Leaders addressing the conferences explained the importance of building a solid mass movement against the anti-people policies of the government. It was stressed upon that the Party members, enlightened by Marxist-Leninist learning, have to reach out to the people on the local issues and organise them into a movement for forcing this government to mend its ways of functioning and take pro-people policies.