Leaders of the Trinamool Congress in Tripura are licking their ‘poll debacle’ wounds and trying to put forth the conspiracy theory to explain its humiliating defeats in the June 23 by-polls to four constituencies.
Addressing a press meet in Agartala, TMC State Committee president Subal Bhowmik – a political person who changed parties six times, so far – claimed they got a good response from people but the mood of the people was not reflected in the EVMs.
Voters did not prefer TMC was evident from the fact that two of its candidates – in Agartala and Bordowali seats – were even unable to cross 1000 mark while deposits of all the four candidates were fortified. Overall vote share in the by-polls was less than 3 percent.
Explaining reasons behind heavy poll debacle, Bhowmik said, there was a conspiracy by CPM and Congress against the Trinamool following the Bengal Model. This conspiracy gave oxygen to the BJP. Moreover, people were scared.
In support of his conspiracy theory, Bhowmik referred to the visit of the AICC team led by Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on June 27 and said, the visiting team did not speak anything against Tripura Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha for the political violence in Tripura.
“Political violence was taking place in Tripura when Dr Saha was the party president and the same continued even after he became the Chief Minister. But the visiting Congress leaders neither criticized Dr Saha nor uttered any word against PM Modi. Like in West Bengal, Congress and CPM were fighting against TMC in Tripura and both the CPM and BJP consider the TMC as their main challenger. All these factors taken together gave BJP an advantage in the by-polls”, Bhowmik explained.
Despite unleashing mega campaigns in which stars and senior politicians including AITC general Secretary Abhishek Banerjee took part, the TMC had to bite dust.
To find out the reasons behind such a humiliating defeat, State Committee members under the leadership of Subal Bhowmik held a review meeting on Tuesday at the camp-office at Bhowmik’s residence.
Apart from ‘we are accepting the verdict of people’ and the conspiracy theory nothing concrete was revealed by Subal Bhowmik.
He did not talk about burning points like whether he would resign taking responsibility of the defeat.
Of course, Bhowmik still claimed TMC is the only party in Tripura that can free people from the clutches of BJP.
