Harmful Alliance by Congress in Tripura

Date: 
Tuesday, January 22, 2002

Press Statement

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement:

Harmful Alliance By Congress in Tripura

Tripura is a state where the unity of the tribal and non-tribal people has been maintained despite all provocations. In this context, it is disturbing that the Congress party in Tripura has announced its decision to contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha by-election for the Tripura (West) constituency in alliance with the TUJS and IPFT. The Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) is well known as the political front for the main terrorist outfit in Tripura, the NLFT. The NLFT has established a bloody record of mass killings, extortion and assassinations of political leaders. Recently, on January 13, a NLFT gang shot and killed 16 innocent non-tribals including women and children at a market place near Khowai town. The IPFT acts at the behest of such an extremist organisation which has been banned.

The Congress party in Tripura has no qualms about allying with the extremist backed-IPFT purely motivated by its anti-CPI(M) and anti-Left Front approach. It is ironical that on the one hand the PCC(I) President of Tripura blames the Left Front government for failure to prevent the mass killings such as in Khowai but on the other it is prepared to join hands with the very extremist forces who are responsible for such carnage.

The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) strongly condemns this opportunist gang-up with the IPFT which is nothing but a platform for the separatist and terrorist outfit.

The national leadership of the Congress party has to explain how it is allowing such a step which is harmful to the people of Tripura and national unity.