Tripura CPM says understanding with Congress will continue, talks not yet held with TIPRA Motha

The CPM and the Congress are part of the nationwide INDIA bloc of parties united to fight the BJP. However, details of which party will contest which of the two Lok Sabha seats in Tripura have not been discussed yet, the CPM leader said.

Chaudhury also said the Opposition TIPRA Motha was being manipulated by the ruling BJP. “They are being lured with offers of ministership, packages… The state government is not even providing sufficient funds to the (Tripura Tribal Areas) ADC. They are not allowing village committee elections,” he said. Motha is ruling the ADC.

“Whatever happened in the past has happened. Motha should learn from reality, not join their (BJP’s) bandwagon,” the CPM leader said, adding that tribal hamlets were reeling under child deaths, child sale and delayed salaries.

Criticising Motha’s core demand of Greater Tipraland, Chaudhury said, “Greater Tipraland is an imaginary, unrealistic and illogical demand. We are not opposing it for the sake of opposing. Now there is no chance of achieving Greater Tipraland.”

Asked if the CPM would be ready to talk to Motha on the separate state demand given that the latter has declined to team up with any party without an agreement on it, Chaudhury said, “There is no scope of dialogue on it. But the way BJP is looting democracy, the way they have introduced a Uniform Civil Code in Uttarakhand, the way Home Minister Amit Shah has said the CAA will be introduced before the LS polls…. UCC and CAA mean the minorities of this country will have to forget their existence. We hope TIPRA Motha will read the writing on the wall and play their democratic part in defeating the BJP.”

“There is strange hobnobbing. Usually when such strikes are held, the ruling party speaks against them… But we haven’t seen any BJP statements against the strike,” the CPM leader said, referring to Monday’s statewide strike called by Motha’s student wing demanding that Kokborok be allowed to be written using Roman script in exams.

The CPM and the Congress, which have been bitter opponents, entered a seat-sharing partnership for the 2023 Assembly elections and won 14 seats—11 by the former and three by the latter, which scored zero in the 2018 polls. The alliance, however, could not win any of the three bypolls held since then.

Motha, which was floated in 2021 with the demand of Greater Tipraland for tribals, has emerged as the principal Opposition party since the last Assembly polls, which it fought alone, without allying with any party formally.

The CPM later accused Motha of maintaining “clandestine links” with the BJP and putting up candidates in several seats to divide Opposition votes. For its part, Motha made similar accusations against the Left party, saying the tribal party lost several seats to the BJP because the CPM had failed to see which seats it had real potential of winning.