The Hindu : `Cong. playing dangerous game in Tripura'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Aug 12, 2002

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National

`Cong. playing dangerous game in Tripura'

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI AUG. 11. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has accused the Congress of indulging in a "dangerous game" in Tripura by aligning with an outfit which had the backing of an underground extremist organisation.

Referring to the alliance between the Congress and the Indigenous Nation People's Front of Tripura ahead of the Assembly elections due early next year, the CPI(M) said the INPT was a new version of the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura formed three years ago as a front for the banned National Liberation Front of Tripura.

In an article in the latest edition of the party organ, People's Democracy, the CPI(M) politburo member, Prakash Karat, charged that the IPFT was able to capture the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council by rigging the election with the help of the NLFT which had terrorised voters into staying away from the polls.

"The INPT is now an amalgamated outfit which comprises the IPFT, the Tripura National Volunteers and the Tripura Upajati Juba Samati. The TNV, headed by Bijoy Hrankhal, was the one which initiated violent attacks on non-tribals since 1980'', the article said adding that the Congress which came to power at the Centre in 1980 entered into an understanding with the TNV and used it to fight the CPI(M) and the Left Front Government.

"The Congress has obviously refused to learn from its past dalliance with the separatist and extremist groups in Tripura. Lacking a base among the tribal people, it has always made fighting the CPI(M) its topmost priority and did not hesitate in the past to encourage and have tacit alliances with the extremist groups. Now it has decided on an open political and electoral alliance with such forces'', it said.

Mr. Hrankhal, now the INPT leader, along with the Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee chief, had met the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, in June when the alliance was finalised, it said.

The article also has a few posers to the Congress central leadership.

It sought to know whether the party was aware that the NLFT was instrumental in the formation of INPT, that the NLFT was the prime source of terrorist violence in the State, operating from camps in Bangladesh and whether the Congress could allow such an "opportunistic and dangerous electoral alliance''.

"The Left parties will resolutely fight this unprincipled gang-up'', the article said.

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