Unable to curb the escalating violence between BJP and Tipra Motha followers ahead of the TTAADC election, and the exposure of several BJP workers being involved in serious crimes against women, narcotic trade and financial corruption, Chief Minister Dr. Manik Saha resorted to spreading a barrage of falsehoods, distortion of history and distasteful slander against CPI(M) and communist leaders, shamefully lowering the constitutional dignity of the office that he has been holding since 2022.

The canards that the Chief Minister spread against CPI(M) are:  June 1980 tribal non-tribal riot was ignited by CPI(M); Left Front regime was marked with regular murder and rape; a pregnant women was subjected to miscarriage by kicking on her belly by CPI(M) cadres; CPI(M) used to unleash terrorism before and after every election; retrenchment of 10.323 teachers happened because of unfair means in appointment practiced by the Left Front government; Left Front government deliberately let the tribals remain illiterate; CPI(M) made an unholy alliance with Congress in the last Assembly election; the ongoing violent clashes between BJP and Tipra Motha are provoked by CPI(M) to grab power by wicked means, etc.

Jitendra Choudhury, Leader of Opposition in Tripura Legislative Assembly, in a press meet in his office at Assembly House on January 7, shredded each and every anti-CPI(M) of these lies.

About the lie that CPI(M) was solely responsible for June 1980 ethnic unrest, Jitendra Choudhury said that while the Left Front government was preparing for ADC election after passing the TTAADC Act in the Assembly under the 7^th Schedule of the Constitution, the then TUJS (precursor of the present Tipra Motha) called for market boycott demanding deportation of Bengalis who entered into the state after October 14, 1949, suspending the TTAADC election. At that time the present Chief Minister Dr. Saha belonged to Congress who vehemently opposed TTAADC Act and, in the 1980 Lok Sabha election, made a pledge to the people that, if they would win, they would repeal the TTAADC Act in the Lok Sabha. Maharani Bibhu Kumari Devi, the then Congress leader being invited in TUJS conference at Taidu in March 1980, made a clarion call to ‘recapture Jammudweep’ inciting the TUJS cadres to make Tripura exclusively for Tripuris devoid of any Bengalis. This led to the market boycott movement of TUJS and ethnic unrest. The key architect of June 1980 riot is now heading a party which is a partner of his alliance government. But Dr. Saha consciously refrains to name him.  Can Dr. Manik Saha erase off this dark history by slandering CPI(M) while he himself was a part of this history, Jitendra Choudhury asked.

Ridiculing the Chief Minister’s appreciation of the law and order situation in his regime, Jitendra Choudhury asked the Chief Minister to find a single opposition party office, including that of CPI(M), which was not attacked, vandalised, set on fire or occupied during eight years of BJP regime. On the contrary, he challenged the Chief Minister to give a single such instance of attack on the opposition party office during 35 years of the Left Front regime. The opposition rally near the police headquarters was attacked few days back in presence of police that resulted in 5-6 CPI(M) cadres getting injured and several bikes damaged. The BJP miscreants openly chanted the slogan in presence of police “We will lynch Jitendra Choudhury”. The day recent Bihar Assembly election results came out, Tripura BJP celebrated their so called ‘victory’ by demolishing and gutting five CPI(M) offices and physically hurting several party workers. Some CPI(M) offices were attacked and vandalized 15-16 times. Often the police deny permission to CPI(M) to hold any mass programme citing law and order problem. Every day the local media carry the news of crimes against women like murder, rape, kidnapping, etc., and in most cases the perpetrators belong to the ruling BJP, thus keeping the police forces idle since no action is taken against them. Jitendra Choudhury asked the Chief Minister to show honesty by mentioning the name of woman who was subjected to miscarriage for the torture by CPI(M) and the date and place of occurrence. There are records of crime rates, including that of Left Front regime period, with the Home Department which may be compared, Jiten suggested. Nowadays, any FIR against any perpetrator having even a remote link with any of the ruling circle, is rejected outright by the police and the complainant is advised to negotiate with Mondal leaders, Jitendra Choudhury alleged.

Regarding alliance with Congress, Jitendra Choudhury said, it is a fact that we have basic differences with Congress in policy matters and programmes. But it is not new that for greater interest of protecting democracy, secularism and basic essence of the Constitution, both the parties had come together with common understanding. The seat sharing with Congress in 2023 Assembly election was also on the same perspective, Jitendra Choudhury asked the Chief Minister to explain the basis of BJP’s alliance with Tipra Motha and IPFT whose only political motto is to create ‘Tipraland’, an independent state for Tripuris. In 2023 Assembly election, Tipra Motha, according to the secret deal with BJP,  pretended to oppose them and set candidates in 22 general seats, knowing fully well that they had only a remote chance of winning in those seats and ultimately helped the BJP to get majority by splitting the opposition tribal votes in those seats. If Tipra Motha had not played such a trick the BJP would have been dislodged from power, Jitendra Choudhury said.

Strongly refuting the Chief Minister’s wild allegation that CPI(M) patronised extremist outfits in the state, Jitendra Choudhury said, innumerable sacrifices of CPI(M) leaders, cadres and even common supporters including party MLAs, ADC members, Pradhans, State and District level leaders, etc., who laid down their lives at the hands of the extremist outfits in the past three decades for protecting unity, integrity and ethnic fraternity between tribals and nontribals, is a shining record in the history. On the contrary, the role of the Congress, which once the present Chief Minister belonged to, was to utilise the insurgent outfits to embarrass the Left Front government and for political and electoral gains. There are documentary evidence of a secret deal between the then TNV supremo Bijoy Hrankhwal and the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who conspired to dislodge the Left Front government in the 1988 Assembly election.

Coming to the humanistic aspects of the retrenched 10,323 teachers by court order, Jitendra Choudhury said, those ill-fated teachers were appointed on the basis of a well-established recruitment policy of the Left Front government that was adhered to since 1980. In reality 95 per cent of the present employees in service in various Government Departments were appointed on the basis of the same appointment policy. There was neither any allegation of corruption of even a single penny nor any allegation of nepotism. The BJP in their election manifesto in 2018 assured them to redress justice if necessary by enacting law in the parliament. The court annulled the ‘economic criteria’ of the appointment policy and thereby pushed careers of those teachers into uncertainty. Till now, 227 of them have died of poverty and frustration. Recently, the Kolkata High Court validated the appointment of about 32,000 teachers whose recruitments raised serious concern involving bribery to the extent of crores of money. While the ill-fated Tripura teachers are pressing the government to file a review petition urging for validating their appointment, unfortunately, deviating from their earlier stand, the Chief Minister is tainting the integrity of the teachers, Jitendra Choudhury said.

Expressing surprise at the ignorance of the Chief Minister about state’s history, Jitendra Choudhury said that it is established history that the Janashiksha Samity guided by the communists was the first torch-bearer of literacy in Tripura. During the Congress regime, huge number of ST reserved posts in various government Departments were filled by non-ST candidates on the plea that there was dearth of ST candidates. The Left Front government first initiated a policy of drawing every child, both in hills and plains, to the school. The government established schools in every village so that no child needed to walk more than a kilometer to reach school. Parallel to that, the government liberalised the recruitment policy to fulfill the backlog vacancies of the tribal reserved seats. Due to this commendable drive of the Left Front government Tripura topped in the country in literacy in 2013.

Now, under the BJP-led alliance regime, the state education system is on the verge of collapse. The guardians of the children are not interested in getting their wards admitted in the government schools because there are neither sufficient teachers nor teaching infrastructure. Hundreds of schools are run by single teachers. About 600 primary schools established by the Left Front government were either merged or closed because of insufficient students. The ‘Vidyajyoti’ project in the name of quality education in upper schools has frustrated most of the promising students who are crowding at the doors of private tutors.

Lastly, Tipra Motha is a second partner of the BJP-led alliance government in Tripura. Leaders of neither party feel discomfort in working under the same roof, holding cabinet meetings and other administrative meetings. But the grassroots workers of both the parties are warring against one another. During last two months, no less than 20 violent clashes took place between BJP and Tipra Motha creating a law and order crisis in various places in ADC areas. This is a problem of organisational indiscipline of both the parties. Unfortunately, the Chief Minister alleges CPI(M) for ‘inciting’ such clashes. Jitendra Choudhury said that certainly we express concern for law and order problem emanating from these clashes and hoped that the Chief Minister would refrain from such Goebbelsian falsehood to maintain his own respectability as well as the dignity of the office he holds.