Agartala, Apr 08: As wide allegations labeled against him as ‘Communal’ are snowballing into a major issue, Tripura Congress chief Pradyot Kishore Debbarman today sought to reply to those allegations vis-a-vis clarify his position that he is not ‘Communal’.
In fact, he triggered the conversies for his reported growing proximity with ATTF chief Ranjit Debbarma recently.
Venting ire on ruling BJP, Debbarman – a member of Tripura Royal family – alleged that the party had crossed all limits to label him as a communal leader. He also claimed, “All these comments have no factual ground”.
“My own uncle and also a member of Tripura royal family—Deputy Chief Minister in BJP-IPFT Government, Jishnu Debbarma of BJP is today being pressed by his party higher ups to speak against me and my sister, who is a Congress candidate. BJP spokesperson, Dr. Ashok Sinha who was earlier a Congress member, also changed his tone against me in an attempt to label me as a communal leader. These attempts show how politics has lost its stature under this regime” Pradyot claimed.
Further clarifying his ‘non Communal’ attitude, the Congress president also kept on saying, my family was the first to recognise Rabindra Nath Tagore. “My family has built Hindu temples all over the state, I am also a Hindu but does it really mean that I can’t speak for the people of my state. I have a clear vision that people of my state whether they are Bengali, Muslim or Christian always come first for me”, he told the media today in Agartala.
IPFT suffers major blows:
Ananta Debbarma along with Vice Chairman Budhia Debbarma and a number of political groups who were with IPFT, today officially extended support to the Congress party. The conditional support was given in lieu of five crucial points—movement against CAB, challenging the Forest Bill in the Supreme Court, Roman scripting of Kokborok, more power to ADC and direct funding to the scheduled areas.
Pradyot held a press briefing along with disgruntled IPFT leader Ananta Debbarma – who resigned from IPFT on Sunday last. Speaking about growing discontent among BJP’s coalition partner IPFT, Pradyot Kishore also said, due to such political blame games, IPFT leaders are gradually becoming frustrated and merging with Congress leaving behind allurement of the power. Former IPFT vice president Ananta Debbarma officially joined the Congress today and expressed his dissatisfaction with the BJP-IPFT coalition.
Lashing out at BJP, former IPFT leader Ananta alleged, “We asked for Twipraland – a separate State for indigenous people. But BJP always played a double standard game with us. It is also true that some of our leaders are so much greedy in taking advantage of power that they have forgotten their prime goal. A huge number of people throughout the state joined the Twipraland movement, but they are now frustrated bunch only. People believed IPFT but now they are aggrieved”, he said.
He also pointed accusing finger at IPFT leader and Minister in BJP-IPFT State Government, Mebar Kumar Jamatia and Mangal Debbarma for repeatedly betraying the people. “They always compromised with the BJP to fulfil their own goal” He alleged.
Following the suit, another IPFT leader, Shukla Charan Noatia who was an IPFT nominee from West LS seat – but his nomination was cancelled due to technical reason – dealt a serious blow to IPFT today evening as he too quit IPFT and announced his decision to throw his weight behind Congress in ensuing LS Polls. Twin jolt for IPFT may prove to be crucial for the Party and Political analysts believe that several top notch leader of IPFT will soon follow Ananta Debbarma and Shukla Charan Noatia soon.
