Biplab Deb says CPM’s Jitendra Chaudhury became Tripura Opposition leader because of BJP’s mercy

For his part, Chaudhury termed Deb’s comments as “signs of political immaturity”. “His comments are evidence enough that the BJP has become full of political clowns,” he said.

Deb also made a sharp attack on the Left Front and Congress-led governments. “People of Tripura know that before 2018, the 25-year-long CPM-led government, Congress-led coalition government (of five years) and the 10-year-long CPM-led government before that were formed amid fights between the CPM and the Congress. I want to ask the Congress candidate how his party has reconciled with the decades of bitter rivalry.”

The CPM and the Congress, which are part of the Opposition INDIA bloc, have shared the two Lok Sabha seats between themselves, with state Congress president Ashish Kumar Saha fielded from West Tripura and CPM former MLA Rajendra Reang from East Tripura. They are pitted against Deb and Kriti Singh Debbarma, princess of the erstwhile royal family, respectively.

Deb cited the 1988 Ujan Maidan gang-rape. “We speak of Sandeshkhali in West Bengal. What happened at Ujan Maidan in Tripura? Tribal women were picked from their homes and raped for three days there. The CPM had then hit the streets across the state against the then Congress government. The communist party came to power in 1993 because of that agitation. I want to ask my CPM friends how they have gone to the Congress lap, forgetting their history,” he said.

Deb also invoked the 1988 Birchandramanu massacre in South Tripura, where 13 CPM supporters were killed shortly after the Congress-Tripura Upajati Juba Samiti government came to power in the same year. He said the CPM used to set up martyrs’ altars in honour of those killed at Birchandramanu in South Tripura. He questioned the two parties’ roles in the deaths of their workers in clashes as well as decades of armed insurgency.

Deb invited supporters of the Opposition parties to the BJP, “There is still time. Come with us. No point in staying with them (CPM and Congress). They work for personal gains. PM Narendra Modi is the leader of BJP. He doesn’t work for himself. He works for the country. Modiji has proved it across the country that he works for his 140 crore countrymen. Our workers will go to each household and seek blessings for me and votes for Modiji,” he said.

In a reference to the Congress’s past slogan of “roti, kapda, makaan”, Deb said, “They spoke of food, clothes and housing but it was the BJP government that worked for these things. We worked to ensure housing, safe drinking water and livelihood for the youth.”

He appealed to BJP workers to go to every household irrespective of party affiliations.