Date:23/01/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/01/23/stories/2003012304451100.htm

National

Yechury criticises Cong. 'alliance' with INPT

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JAN. 22. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) today charged the outlawed National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) with carrying out "violent murderous attacks" against its supporters in Tripura, where Assembly elections are scheduled next month.

The CPI(M), which leads the Left Front Government in Tripura, said here that at least 14 such attacks had taken place since the elections were announced. The CPI(M) politburo member, Sitaram Yechury, said at a press conference that the NLFT, which enjoyed the "patronage" of the Congress-Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) alliance "has embarked on such a course to terrorise the people and force them to vote for the Congress-led alliance".

He said that the INPT was the political wing of the NLFT and argued that any alliance with the INPT "constitutes a direct collaboration with the outlawed and banned extremist NLFT". "The Congress has indulged in direct collusion with an extremist organisation, which seeks to dismember our country. The Congress has once against shown that it places narrow electoral interests above the interests of the unity and integrity of India."

Terming the Congress claim that it had forged an alliance only with the INPT and not with the NLFT as "specious", the party said the NLFT was "making a mockery" of this claim by campaigning in favour of the Congress-INPT alliance and "ordering" people to vote for the combine. Last week, two CPI(M) cadres were kidnapped from a village and when police discovered their bodies later, they found torture marks. Mr. Yechury said he had called on the Chief Election Commissioner, J.M. Lyngdoh, on Tuesday demanding adequate forces to ensure free and fair elections. The CEC had promised to deploy more forces.

He was equally critical of the BJP-led NDA Government, stating that while it claimed to be fighting cross-border terrorism sponsored by Pakistan, it did little to tackle similar problems faced by Tripura. The State Government had in the past given specific information to the Union Home Ministry on insurgent camps being run inside Bangladesh. "Given the BJP Government's approach to fighting only one kind of terrorism — promoted by Pakistan — there is a deliberate silence on the northeast front. The Government should take up the issue with the Bangladesh Government." The All-India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) has urged the Congress to consider afresh its decision to have an electoral alliance with the INPT. In a letter to the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, the Association said that the alliance had strengthened and emboldened terrorists, who recently gunned down two AIDWA members because they refused to accept the diktats of the banned NLFT.