Agartala, Nov. 5: Political parties in Tripura have already started preparing for the autonomous district council (ADC) election even though it is still a few months away.
The regional IPFT with its campaign for separate state based on the autonomous district council areas appears to have struck a chord in the minds of a section of indigenous community.
The other regional party, INPT, has completed the first part of its long march across these areas of the state for the polls scheduled for March-April.
The CPM, which has a near-impregnable base among the indigenous communities, has also started responding to the campaign by the regional forces.
In the last two ADC polls in 2005 and 2010, the CPM-led Left Front had made a clean sweep of all 28 seats in the council where two more members are nominated by the governor on the recommendation of the state government.
In the 2008 and 2013 Assembly polls, the Left Front won all but one of the 20 constituencies reserved for Scheduled Tribes (ST).
Chief minister Manik Sarkar, who has been the party’s most formidable campaigner for the past 16 years, launched the party’s campaign for the ADC polls with an attack on “fissiparous tendencies being promoted by regional forces” and “conspiracy to divide the state”.
Sarkar yesterday unveiled a cultural complex named after former chief minister and indigenous community leader Dasharath Deb at Suparibagan here.
“All sections of the people in the state must be alive to the dangerous conspiracy being hatched by regional political forces to divide the state and its people on ethnic lines,” said Sarkar.
He charged the IPFT and INPT with working as “masks” of banned militant outfits and said the militants based in the remote areas of Bangladesh and across its border in Myanmar were still active and trying to destabilise the state.
Sarkar also recounted the historical background of setting up the ADC. “The first Left Front government had set up the ADC in January 1982 and after the Centre had amended the Constitution in August 1984, the ADC was passed to the more powerful Sixth Schedule from April 1, 1985. The Left parties had struggled for the ADC all along to protect the interests of the tribal communities.”
He appealed to defeat the conspiracy of the “fissiparous forces”. “These regional forces are trying to regain their lost relevance by raising such dangerous slogans but they will not succeed. They may engineer violence and ethnic trouble in the state,” said Sarkar.
He also asserted that the Left Front and all “right thinking people” would continue and intensify an awareness campaign against slogans raised by parties like IPFT and INPT in the coming weeks and months till the ADC polls.
However, INPT general secretary Jagadish Debbarma and IPFT leader Benoy Debbarma condemned the chief minister’s speech as “a sign of nervousness”.
“With what evidence does he accuse us of being in cahoots with the militants? We are a democratic force and we have every right to raise political demands within the framework of the Constitution,” said Jagadish.
Benoy Debbarma, the general secretary of IPFT, said during the past 67 years since Independence many small states have been created.
“Telengana is the latest example. What is illegal or unconstitutional with raising demand for a separate state?” said Benoy.
The duo said they would now intensify their campaign for the ADC polls.
