File picture of Nripen Chakraborty

Agartala, Dec. 24: Tripura?s veteran politician Nripen Chakraborty has been rehabilitated at last, with the CPM re-admitting him into the party fold after almost a decade.

The first sign of the thaw was seen when the party came to the nonagenarian leader?s assistance on Tuesday after he fell ill.

For the battle-hardened ex-chief minister, its may well turn out to be his last victory. The party, which had expelled him nine years ago for lambasting the then West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu on (unsubstantiated) corruption charges, has finally decided to take him back into its fold.

A cryptic statement issued by the CPM state secretariat here said the party politburo had ?decided to readmit Nripen Chakraborty to the CPM in recognition of his immense contribution to the party?.

Highly placed sources in Tripura?s ruling party, who had repeatedly denied such a move till yesterday afternoon, were candid today: ?Yes, our party secretariat had passed a unanimous resolution a week ago urging the politburo to readmit him into the party.?

What is more significant is that Chakraborty had never sought readmission to the party he had built up and brought to power in the state.

But veteran tribal leader Dasharath Deb, who had single-handedly built up the Marxist base among Tripura?s tribals, was chosen chief minister by the politburo in 1993.

Local leaders had anticipated such a decision since Dasharath Deb was made the party secretary shortly after the Cong-TUJS victory in the 1988 Assembly polls. The need for preserving the traditional tribal base was also felt in the face of poaching by sectarian tribal-based political forces.

But Chakraborty?s die-hard followers, who had been in the majority on all party committees across the state, including the state secretariat, sought his rehabilitation. They unanimously passed two consecutive resolutions, urging the politburo to facilitate his inclusion in the state cabinet. As expected, the politburo shot down the proposals and shunted out Chakraborty as vice-chairman of the state planning board.

Nripen Chakraborty held the powerful West Bengal chief minister responsible and launched a vicious diatribe against Basu via the media.

Their relationship reached a point of no return when Chakraborty accused Basu of ?rank corruption? in newspaper interviews. And the man who had become chief minister for two consecutive terms was summarily expelled on April 13, 1995.