Days after returning to power in Tripura for the second consecutive term, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has issued a stern warning to “opportunists”, who it charged were responsible for “defaming” the party by taking advantage of its workers' “innocence”. Addressing a gathering of the Tripura BJP workers at Rabindra Shatabarshiki Bhawan in Agartala Sunday, state party chief Rajib Bhattacharjee asked them to identify such elements, asserting that the party would decide their “punishment”. Alleging that attempts were made to “weaken the minds of BJP karyakartas (workers)” during the recent Assembly elections, Bhattacharjee said the party activists gave befitting reply to their political opponents by frustrating their “conspiracies” and ensuring that they “sit at their homes forever”. The BJP won 32 seats in the elections to the 60-member state Assembly while its ally IPFT won 1, with BJP leader Manik Saha being sworn in as the CM for the second consecutive time on March 8. The TIPRA Motha, founded by Pradyot Debbarma in 2021, won 13 seats to become the main Opposition in the Assembly, replacing the CPI(M) which could get 11 seats. The Congress contested the polls with the CPM this time, getting three seats. Highlighting the “accomplishments” of the first BJP-led Tripura government, such as the PM Ujjwala Yojana, national highways, new airport, social security pensions and free ration, Bhattacharjee said the BJP activists worked hard for the last six months, which led to the party leaders getting “over-confident” about its victory prior to the poll results. Terming the 2023 Tripura polls a “challenging fight”, the state BJP chief said the entire party rank and file including “panna pramukhs, vistaraks, mandal prabhari” worked to help the party clinch it. He asked them to start gearing up for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections so that the BJP could again win the two parliamentary seats, Tripura West and Tripura East, that it had won in the 2019 general elections. "It's true that we could not win many Assembly seats, but we should not worry for that. We are having Lok Sabha polls ahead, in 2024. That is our main objective now. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah helped Tripura a lot. We should pledge to use our full strength and win both Lok Sabha seats from Tripura and gift them to our Prime Minister," Bhattacharjee said. He asked the party workers to identify weak booths and work to strengthen them as part of the Lok Sabha preparations as per the instructions of the central and state leadership. "If we work with ideals and principles, success of our party organisation will surely come," he said. Referring to some news reports about anarchy being spread in some parts of the state, Bhattacharjee said, “I can strongly iterate that BJP karykartas are simple and innocent. Their innocence is their biggest weakness. Opportunists are trying to defame BJP by taking advantage of this weakness. Identify them. You will get the instructions on the punishment that the party decides to be given to them.” He did not elaborate it, but maintained that the BJP supporters would not be involved in any unethical activities. He said many party leaders and activists had aspirations to contest the 2023 polls and were not given tickets but they did not give up. They worked hard to secure the party’s interests while “sacrificing” their own, he added. In a swipe at senior Congress leader and ex-minister Sudip Roy Barman who had claimed before the polls that the BJP's tally would plunge to a single-digit figure, Bhattacharjee said people who made such claims were now sitting in their homes after being reduced to a single-digit. The BJP-IPFT swept to power in the state for the first time in the 2018 elections, with the saffron party ending the 25-year rule of the erstwhile CPI(M)-led Left Front government.
