Will tie up with Cong in Tripura, also want TIPRA Motha in: CPM makes it formal

Sitaram Yechury brushes away questions over failed West Bengal alliance, Motha's Greater Tipraland demand saying first priority is defeating BJP

The CPI(M) believes the BJP must be stopped from forming the next government in Tripura, Yechury said. (Express photo by Abhishek Saha/File)

Written by: Debraj Deb

5 min readAgartalaJan 12, 2023 02:52 AM IST First published on: Jan 11, 2023 at 06:02 PM IST

The CPI(M) announced Wednesday that it would tie up with the Congress for the coming Assembly elections. Putting an end to the speculation for the past few months, the CPI(M) said seats would be shared between them based on “ground reality”, to ensure “broadest mobilisation of secular forces” to defeat the BJP.

The tribal TIPRA Motha party would also be part of this pre-poll alliance, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury said at a press briefing here. He added that the decision had been taken at the one-day meeting of the CPI(M) state committee Tuesday, following deliberations on the “direction” and “ambitions” of the party and the elections that are just over a month away.

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Apart from Yechury, CPI(M) Politburo member Prakash Karat, former Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar, party state secretary Jitendra Chaudhury and leaders from all districts of Tripura were present at the meeting. Karat left soon after the meeting was over.

“We consider the coming elections very crucial, not only for Tripura but for the sake of democracy and the rule of law and the Constitution. They are important in the context of the Northeast, India, development and for national politics,” Yechury said.

The CPI(M) believes the BJP must be stopped from forming the next government in Tripura, he said, adding that “giving people a better life and maintaining a very important balance between diverse sections of the population” were the principal objectives of the Left, and that the principal parties which shared these goals with the Left were the Congress and TIPRA Motha.

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Asked about the failure of the Congress-Left alliance in neighbouring West Bengal – they did not win a single seat in the 2021 Assembly elections – leading to questioning of the decision among the CPI(M) central leadership, Yechury said the criticism was not over the seat adjustment with the Congress. Rather, he said, the demand was that it should have been developed as an actual alliance with a common manifesto or programme.

Yechury, considered the prime mover of the Congress-Left alliance in Bengal, also said that the CPI(M)’s 23rd Party Congress, held in Kerala in April last year, had resolved that the party’s principal task should be to isolate and defeat the BJP. For this, it was felt that apart from strengthening the party and Left unity, the CPI(M) should also forge “democratic unity” and adopt “suitable electoral tactics” to maximise coming together of non-BJP votes.

As regards the TIPRA Motha too, the going won’t be easy for the CPI(M). The tribal party’s main demand is Greater Tipraland, or a separate state for tribals living in different parts of Tripura, parts of Assam, Mizoram, as well as bordering areas of neighbouring Bangladesh.

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Asked about this, Yechury said the Left was against division of Tripura’s territorial borders, would agree to things within the framework of the Constitution, and an answer could be maximum possible autonomy to tribal areas.

Questioned specifically if the CPI(M) supports Greater Tipraland, Yechury said: “The first point is whether the BJP needs to be defeated or not. Don’t bring in these issues. The Congress brought in the Emergency. So, should we have seat adjustment with them? The point is what is the priority today. In fighting the Emergency, we united with all forces, including elements who are now in power. In order to defend secularism, we shall unite with all forces who are willing to unite and who are willing to come forward to defend secularism.”

Yechury added that the seat-sharing details would be worked out at the state level. “At the central level, we have cleared that there should be a broad unity of secular forces.”

Asked about the Left’s face for the coming elections, the CPI(M) ducked the question, repeating that the main priority was to defeat the BJP first.

While the Congress, which has one MLA in the Tripura Assembly, has been agreeable to an alliance with the Left, all eyes will now be on the TIPRA Motha. Its chief Pradyut Kishore Debbarma has refused to commit to any party without an assurance on Greater Tipraland. With 20 ST-reserved seats in the 60-member Assesmbly, the tribal vote is crucial in the state.