Grieving relatives of those killed by militants at Mandai Chowmahuni of West Tripura on Sunday night (PTI)

Elections are a time when militancy reaches its peak in Tripura, where the polls are slated for February 26, like in the two neighbouring states of Meghalaya and Nagaland.

Reviving the blood-soaked memories of the last Assembly elections in 1988, militants gunned down 11 non-tribals on the night of Republic Day. This was just another ruthless demonstration of how the rebels see in elections the opportunity to make themselves heard. This was virtually the kick-off to a violent campaign, an ominous indication that bullets have cast a shadow over the ballot in a blood-soaked state.

This, of course, is true to Tripura’s tradition. Before the 1988 Assembly elections, the erstwhile Tripura National Volunteers insurgents had got in touch with the Rajiv Gandhi government at the Centre through former Mizoram chief minister Lalthanhawla for a negotiated settlement.

In reply to the TNV’s letter carried by Lalthanhawla, former Union home minister Buta Singh had categorically said that unless a Congress-led government was installed in Tripura, the Centre would not be able to take any initiative for peace talks. This was followed by an unprecedented blood bath as TNV insurgents killed a record number of 102 non-tribals in a statewide pogrom in the week preceding the February 2 elections.

The state had also come under the Disturbed Areas Act on January 29, three days ahead of the polls, leading to the installation of a Congress-Tripura Upajati Juba Samity coalition government by a wafer-thin majority of 31-29 in the 60-member Assembly.

Battlelines drawn

A few months before the tripartite peace accord was signed in New Delhi on August 12, 1988 — this ended the TNV-led insurgency — the entire correspondence between the outfit and the Union government had been published by an Aizawl-based daily. The Congress government, still holding sway at the Centre, had to swallow the bitter pill even as the CPM leadership launched an orchestrated tirade over the “unholy TNV-Congress nexus”.

The CPM retaliated in kind by floating the All-Tripura Tribal Force (ATTF) in May 1990. This was done to protect the tribal areas under the Autonomous District Council (ADC) from encroachment by non-tribals under the sponsorship of ruling Congress-TUJS as well as to prevent poll rigging.

The ATTF selectively killed Congress-TUJS workers for the rest of the coalition government’s rule till March 1993 and surrendered en masse on September 6 that year within five months of the installation of the fourth Left Front government headed by Dasharath Deb.

A nucleus of the group, led by Ranjit Debbarma, however, remained underground and continues to operate under the changed banner of the All-Tripura Tiger Force.

The National Liberation Front of Tripura, initially comprising a group of surrendered commanders of the TNV, was launched in April 1989. It continues to operate even now with a vague demand for a “free holy land of Tripura”.

Terror unleashed

It is clear from all indications that the militant outfits (both banned in 1997), particularly the NLFT, will play a key role in the coming elections.

The Tiger Force, in its new incarnation, continues with its sole political demand: deportation of all non-tribals who settled down in Tripura since October 15, 1949 when the state had merged with the Indian Union. It has called for a boycott of the ensuing polls.

The NLFT rebels have been working with a strong determination to ensure a Congress-INPT victory in the coming polls. In the interior villages, gun-toting NLFT militants are organising small meetings to intimidate voters into supporting INPT candidates.

They have also threatened the CPM’s candidate in South Tripura district’s Ampi constituency, Nakshatra Jamatya, with dire consequences unless he withdrew from the polls, according to CPM state secretariat member Gautam Das. In many constituencies spread over all four districts, CPM candidates were finding it impossible to visit the voters, he says.

The constant refrain in all meetings held by the NLFT rebels is that the security forces deployed for the elections would not stay long. And those who do not vote for the INPT would be liquidated. Even though the Left Front continues to assert that there will be no repetition of 1988, the pre-poll scene clearly indicates the possibility of largescale violence.

During the ADC polls of 2000, NLFT rebels had actively campaigned for the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (now the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura). They intimidated voters and abducted several CPM candidates and their relatives. As a result, the IPFT clinched a neat majority in the 28-member ADC.

Having already lost more than 200 partymen to the NLFT’s bullets over the past few years, the CPM-led Left Front has strengthened security in the hill areas, setting up over 100 camps of the Tripura State Rifles to prevent the movement of militants.

Democracy bleeds

The NLFT is desperate for a Congress-INPT victory, which they view as a passport to an honourable settlement of the militancy problem through talks. During the past few years, both Tiger Force and the NLFT have spurned repeated appeals made by the chief minister Manik Sarkar to join the mainstream.

Shortly after the ADC polls, the NLFT had rejected an approach for surrender from Col. A.K. Sachdev of the Assam Rifles. The outfit aims at total polarisation of votes on ethnic lines through arm-twisting tactics in the 20 Assembly constituencies reserved for tribals.

As for the Tiger Force, which is thought to be soft towards the Left Front, it is likely to indulge in violence in their areas of hegemony in Sadar (North) and parts of Khowai sub-division to enforce their boycott call.

Official sources claim the Tiger Force was “not soft on the Left Front but they will never want to do anything that will help their rival, the NLFT”. The dissident group of the NLFT led by Nayanbasi Jamatya controls parts of Takarjala, Golaghati and Charilam constituencies under Bishalgarh sub-division. The Nayanbasi group has not yet made its stand on the elections clear.

In a state where militants of myriad hues having diverse political affiliations are on the prowl, it is democracy which is likely to suffer.