BARELY three months before the Tripura general elections scheduled for February 2023, the state government here is busy promoting the idea of sushashan (good governance) to every doorstep. 

The streets of Tripura are covered with lakhs of banners, hoardings and cut-outs with images of the chief minister and cabinet ministers with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

This hyped publicity bombarding the public with the images of the ministers and costing the government exchequer crores of rupees is only an attempt to hide the government’s utter failure in all sectors. 

The ‘sushashan’ that the BJP-IPFT government has been establishing in the state needs to be examined. 

LAW AND ORDER

The first parameter to assess the performance of a state government is the law and order situation prevailing in the state. Since the inception of the BJP-IPFT government on March 2018, Tripura has been converted to a torture chamber for the supporters of opposition parties.

The police administration has become so biased towards the ruling parties that they outrightly deny filing any complaint against any of the criminals having the slightest connection to the ruling parties. 

Following the establishment of ‘sushashan’, with keeping the major police administration in the service of the criminals, naturally, peace has withered away from day one of this regime.  Miscreants have been given the ‘legitimate’ right to set fire to the houses, carry on attacks, vandalise and loot valuables from the houses of the leaders, workers and common supporters of the opposition parties, particularly the main opposition party of the state, the CPI(M).  

The perpetrators are aware that since the government stands as a shield to protect them, no law can touch them.

The followings are the records of political attacks let loose on the CPI(M) leaders, workers and supporters from March 3, 2018 to September 30, 2022.

** Some of the offices were attacked eight to nine times, and some were demolished by the bulldozer. Not a single CPI(M )office in the state, including the CPI(M  state committee office, was spared from this violence.

This politicisation of the police administration resulted in an alarming deterioration of the general law and order situation, especially the crime against women. 

In a reply to the question in the assembly, the state home department informed on September 26, that between January 1 - August 31, 2022, the number of complaints of crime against women was recorded at 2,164. Among those, 381 were complaints of rape, 26 were of gang rape and seven were killed after rape.  If these are recorded crimes in the police stations, the actual number might be many more than that, because very few victims tend to make complaints fearing social stigma.

Similarly, incidents of murder, kidnapping, robbery, theft, extortion of money, pilferage etc., are on the rise.

Failing to depend on the police, the residents themselves are making arrangements to guard the area at night against theft. The incidents of domestic violence are also on the rise. 

DEMOCRACY

Democracy is the worst-hit casualty in places where peace ceases to exist and law enforcement forces serve the criminals. 

All the elections held in this regime, conducted by the ECI or the State Election Commission under this ‘sushashan’ were reduced to complete mockery preventing a large section of people from casting their votes. 

In gram panchayat and urban body elections, there is a record of 95 per cent of seats won by the ruling BJP uncontested as it prevented the opposition parties from filing nominations. 

Any political programme taken up by the opposition parties is not allowed by the police in anticipation of the deterioration of the law and order situation.  

Even the programme undertaken by CPI(M) to pay homage to 13 martyrs at Birchadra Manu of Santirbazar, south Tripura, who were killed by the butchers patronised by then Congress-TUJS regime in 1988, was not allowed by the police.

The village committee elections under TTAADC were due in March 2021. But the government did not allow them anticipating another setback in the hills which may adversely impact the general election to the state assembly. Initially, the government cited COVID-19 as an excuse to postpone the elections. Since the bye-elections were held in 2021 and 2022, this hoax excuse for not holding the village elections stands exposed. 

While disposing off a PIL for early elections to the village committees, the Tripura High Court directed the government to hold the election by November. Yet, the government selling the ‘sushahan’ concept is shrewdly searching for plots to avoid village elections. 

FOOD AND WORK

A big section of working people in the state is in an extreme dearth of food and work as the prices skyrocket every day. The man-days provided through MGNREGA are too less to manage the crisis which got worst when the volunteers of ruling parties began siphoning off the MGNREGA funds by falsely enlisting their names as workers. Moreover, in many places, machines are being used for work depriving the workers of their due. Social auditing in a large number of gram panchayats and villages are pending for long period.

POWER
Tripura had a power surplus till 2018 but is now converted to a power-deficit state in 2022. The maintenance has been so bad that it takes a week or two for the repairs.  In many places, drinking water plants and irrigation schemes remain inoperative due to lack of power and it has become a common sight to see people protesting on roads for drinking water. 

HEALTH
The government hospitals are limping with an acute shortage of staff. Recruitment has been stopped by this government. Fees for clinical tests have been raised exorbitantly. The items available with the government dispensaries have been cut short and the quality of food served to the patients has worsened. 

CONNECTIVITY
There was an all-weather road network covering even the remotest village of the state during the Left Front regime. Most of these roads including some national highways have been damaged so badly now that in many places vehicles got stuck under mud in the recent monsoon. The government hardly took any steps for the maintenance of these roads. 

PEASANTS
Availability of fertilizer, seed, agri-inputs and agri-machineries at a subsidised rate is now a situation of the past. There was a high demand for irrigation water even in the recent monsoon period. Most of the irrigation plants were inoperative either due to repair works or due to the disruption of power. No farmer ever received compensation for crop loss which was a big fanfare of the ruling party. A section of middlemen garnered benefits from FCI’s paddy procurement.  

EMPLOYMENT

The rate of unemployment in Tripura is now as high as 17 per cent. Going back on their electoral promise of providing 50,000 government jobs in its first year, this government is adopting the policy to get work done through outsourcing by abolishing the vacant posts. This way, the government downsized about 20,000 government staff in the last 55 months. It retrenched 10,323 teachers. Though BJP promised to solve their issue on humanitarian grounds before the assembly election, in practice, they were brutally treated when they took to the streets for reinstatement. Till now, 142 of them committed suicide or died out of frustration. 

ELECTORAL PROMISES
Not a single pledge of the 299 so-called golden promises mentioned in the ‘Vision Document’, BJP’s election manifesto, could be materialised. At present this document has now become a thorn in the throat for the BJP.  

Standing on a mountain of failure and anticipating rejection from all sections, firstly the BJP tried to exhibit Manik Saha as the new face replacing discredited Biplab Kumar Deb from the leadership of the government. It seems this prescription did not work and so now they are hawking ‘sushashan’ in a desperate bid to hide dushashan. 

The people of Tripura would not be cheated twice by the BJP’s falsehood and hoax allurement.