There’s total anarchy in Tripura now, says Manik Sarkar

Agartala, March 12 (IANS:) The Constitution has ceased to function in Tripura and a total anarchy is prevailing in the BJP ruled state, former Tripura Chief Minister and veteran CPI-M leader Manik Sarkar said on Friday.

Sarkar, who is now the Leader of Opposition in the Tripura Assembly, said that despite seeking interventions of Governor Ramesh Bais and Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb on a number of occasions, attacks and atrocities against opposition leaders and workers are going on unabated in the state.

“CPI-M MLAs, Rajya Sabha MP and senior leaders are not allowed to visit their areas. The Constitution has ceased to function in Tripura and a total anarchy is prevailing in the state ever since the BJP government came to power three years ago,” Sarkar, a CPI-M politburo member, told the media.

He said that while attacks on Left leaders and its political activities are rampant, Deb, who also holds the home portfolio, remains a mute spectator.

“The Chief Minister did not make any statement or never asked the ruling party workers and members to restrain from attacking the opposition. Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speeches has often said that a double engine government is functioning in Tripura. But people’s lives have been devastated by a ‘trouble engine’ government,” said Sarkar, who was the Chief Minister of Tripura for 20 years from 1998 to 2018.

The Left leader said that before the Assembly elections in 2018, the Bharatiya Janata Party had made 299 promises, including providing jobs to thousands of unemployed youth, but not a single assurance has been fulfilled.

Criticising the Prime Minister’s virtual address on March 9 on the occasion of three years of the BJP-led alliance government in Tripura, Sarkar said that when the Left Front was in power, Tripura became an electricity surplus state and started supplying power to most of the northeastern states, besides supplying 160 MW electricity to Bangladesh.

“But the Prime Minister falsely claimed that Tripura became an electricity surplus state after the BJP came to power in March 2018. No rural works are being carried out in Tripura. The people, especially the tribals, are facing crisis of food and employment, while a cut money system has been introduced by the BJP leaders. From the Prime Minister to the state leaders, everyone is making false statements on governance,” Sarkar said, alleging that the people are being cheated at every opportunity in Tripura.

Sarkar said when the Left government came to power in Tripura in 1998, the per capita income was less than INR 8,000, which subsequently increased to INR 80,000.