Eyes on 2023, TMC wants to revamp Tripura unit by Dec 31

Days after three Trinamool Congress (TMC) youth front leaders were allegedly attacked by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers in Tripura and arrested by the local police for violating pandemic restrictions, West Bengal’s ruling party has decided to revamp its organisation in the north-eastern state by December 31.

The deadline has been set by TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee who visited Tripura twice last week, a senior party leader told HT on condition of anonymity. The youth leaders were sent to carry out organizational work. I-Pac, the company formed by election strategist Prashant Kishor, is collecting data on the ground.

“Abhishek Banerjee is in charge of the mission that aims to overthrow the BJP government in the next assembly polls in 2023. Right now, we have no organizational committee in Tripura. Banerjee wants new committees to be set up down to the polling booth level by December 31. If this target is achieved, we will have enough time to pose a challenge to the BJP,” the TMC leader quoted above said.

To ensure that this work continues without break, Banerjee has created a travel roster for six TMC leaders from Bengal. They are education minister Bratya Basu, law minister Moloy Ghatak, Lok Sabha member Kakali Ghosh Dastidar, state general secretary Kunal Ghosh, TMC’s trade union front president Ritabrata Banerjee and former legislator Samir Chakraborty. Each one of them will spend three days in Tripura and leave the state when the next person marked in the roster arrives.

“People of Tripura want a change. We have felt their pulse,” Kunal Ghosh, who went to Agartala on Sunday, said.

Mukul Roy, who left the BJP and returned to the ruling party on June 11, played the key role in building the TMC’s base in Tripura by breaking the Congress.

“Roy has not been given any responsibility yet because of his age and health condition,” said a third TMC leader who did not want to be named.

The Tripura assembly has 60 seats, of which, 43 are in control of BJP and its allies.

Under Roy’s leadership, Sudip Roy Barman, who was leader of the Opposition in the Tripura assembly during the Left regime and who is the son of former Congress chief minister Samir Ranjan Barman, left the Congress and joined TMC in 2016 along with five MLAs. Barman joined the BJP with his followers in 2017 when Mukul Roy switched sides.

After Roy joined the BJP, the TMC made Sabyasachi Dutta, the former mayor of Salt Lake township in the eastern outskirts of Kolkata, in charge of the Tripura unit, but he, too, joined the BJP after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. After this, Ashish Lal Singh, the son of Tripura’s first chief minister Sachindra Lal Singh, remained the TMC’s only face in Tripura.

BJP leaders in Tripura said the TMC is aware that it cannot win the state polls and its real aim is to secure 6% votes ,a criteria for being recognised as a national party.

Though the TMC is recognised as a national party because of its seat share in the Lok Sabha, its presence is negligible outside Bengal. In June, Abhishek Banerjee announced that the TMC will contest assembly polls in other states and take the BJP head on.

“The TMC tried twice to win elections in Tripura but failed. On both occasions, TMC leaders arrived 12 or 18 months before the polls and left after the results were announced. They are following the same routine. But this time around, people are questioning their intentions, the staged attack and the drama surrounding it,” said Subrata Chakraborty, the BJP spokesperson in Tripura.

“This is a democratic state where anybody is free to come and go. However, people have taken note of the social media videos in which the TMC youth leaders can be seen using slang language against chief minister Biplab Deb,” said Chakraborty.

Leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M), who ruled Tripura from 1978 to 1988 and again from 1993 to 2018, have condemned the attack on the youth TMC leaders.

“The CPI(M) may tacitly support the TMC but it won’t help them. The Left parties were completely wiped out in the autonomous district council elections,” said Chakraborty.

CPI(M)’s Tripura state secretary Gautam Das said, “There is no question of helping the TMC. We have only said that every party has the right to carry out organizational work because the Constitution guarantees that freedom. The BJP is running a dictatorial government in Tripura. No other party is allowed to work. Our workers were murdered after the state polls. Many party offices were burnt down.”

Kolkata-based political science professor Udayan Bandopadhyay said, “The TMC can make a breakthrough in Tripura only if there is an exodus from the BJP because Biplab Deb came to power using the anti-incumbency factor against the CPI(M).”