Disunity on Tripura bandh call

Agartala, May 11: The Tripura Gramin Vikash Congress, a year-old party launched by former Congress MLA Subal Bhowmik, is sponsoring a 12-hour Tripura strike tomorrow to protest against alleged “malpractices and irregularities” in Lok Sabha polls to the state’s two seats held on April 7 and 12.

The Vikash Congress’s second demand is removal of chief electoral officer Ashutosh Jindal from his post.

The state Congress, under pressure from the AICC, which is seeking support of the Marxists, has decided neither to support nor oppose tomorrow’s bandh. However, the fissures in the Opposition over the strike has come to the fore with the Trinamul Congress unequivocally opposing the call as it is “anti-people”.

Tripura PCC working president Asish Saha said this morning that his party would “neither support, nor oppose” the strike, Trinamul chairman and former minister Ratan Chakraborty said his party is opposed to strike calls as “they are anti-people”.

“We do not believe in subjecting people to suffering in the name of strike calls unless it is absolutely essential; strikes should always be resorted to as the last option,” Chakraborty said.

The Left Front government has opposed the strike.

Tension between the CPM and the Congress is also taking a turn for the worse as the CPM, its different organisations and other constituents of the Left Front, have decided to politically fight dismissal of 10,323 teachers by an order of the high court on May 7.