The Trinamool Congress on Thursday came down heavily on the BJP for “trying to stifle democracy,” after a posse of policemen entered a hotel in Tripura capital Agartala where the TMC leaders were holding an organizational meeting.
The development came days after members of Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) were detained inside a hotel under the pandemic laws. The I-PAC functionaries were on Thursday granted bail by a local Chief Judicial Magistrate court, sources said.
Making strong remarks against the BJP for “trying to enforce Gujarat model all over the country” by setting the police after the opposition leaders senior Trinamool parliamentarian Derek O’Brien said “About 100 policemen barged inside the hotel where an organizational meeting was going on as if the MPs and the political leaders are terrorists… are we terrorists … we are members of parliament.”
About the detention of the I-PAC members he said “What message did (Union Home Minister) Amit Shah and (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi give from Delhi? They directed from Delhi to arrest the I-PAC team members. They are trying to impose the Gujarat model across India.”
The BJP was not letting the opposition to speak inside Parliament and they were “trying to silence us here,” he said while party leader and Bengal Minister Bratya Basu said that “the BJP is murdering democracy all over the country … by snooping … by imposing restrictions.” The Tripura Government has been “stifling the opposition voice here … they are ruling by terror … the opposition is given no opportunity to do politics here … this is how the BJP administers Tripura,” Basu said.
“The BJP leaders from all over the country entered Bengal and spread corona there during the Assembly elections … but our leader Mamata Banerjee acted democratically and with restraint … she did not stop them from entering Bengal … but here they tolerate no opposition view point. The Opposition parties here are bulldozed every day. Even the MPs and other elected representatives are not spared,” he said.
Meanwhile in a bid to build more pressure on the BJP Government in Tripura The Trinamool leaders said that the party central leadership had asked some more TMC MPs to reach Tripura as a part of which senior MP Kakoli Ghoshdastidar reached Agartala on Thursday while another MP Abhishek Banerjee who is the party's second in command is scheduled to reach the north-eastern State on Friday. In an apparent bid to hit the BJP back in equal measures for the venomous campaign it carried out during the Bengal elections Mamata Banerjee has decided to let her party descend in the BJP-run Tripura in a big way. Before the BJP came to power in that State it had only about 3-4 percent votes. However, after almost the entire TMC merged with it the saffron outfit managed to form a Government winning more than 40 percent votes.
Now the TMC leadership is reportedly trying to engineer defection in the BJP ranks by enticing away a section of Mukul Roy loyalists in that party. According to sources Roy who has a good number of loyalists among the Tripura BJP MLAs could be entrusted with “Mission Tripura and North East.”
At least 12-13 MLAs in that state could join the Trinamool at an appropriate time. Foremost of these Roy loyalists is senior BJP Legislator Sudip Roy Burman who once left the Congress — the main and only opposition party in Tripura — to join the Trinamool Congress and later joined the BJP with the entire chunk of the TMC brass ahead of the State elections in the north-eastern State. A known Roy loyalist Roy Burman had been in a funk for not being made the Tripura Chief Minister—the post went to Biplab Deb. Roy could now be entrusted with gauging the mood of the disgruntled saffron MLAs including Roy Burman— who leads the anti-Biplab Deb camp.
The former Railway Minister could also be joined in his “mission” by senior Congress leader in that State PM Deb Burman a member of the Tripura Royal family, sources said.