Living in terror: Tripura racked by post-election violence

The lives and livelihoods of opposition members and supporters are being attacked allegedly by BJP activists.

The damaged house of Left sympathiser Ashish Deb of Khowai in Tripura. | Photo Credit: Daily Desher Katha

On March 8, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president J.P. Nadda, presided over the swearing-in ceremony of Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha in Agartala following the BJP’s return to power in the State, impoverished rickshaw driver Harimohan Ghosh of Khowai returned home to find his cowshed gutted, his two cows burnt to death, his rickshaw destroyed. Ghosh had to flee his home after being identified as an activist of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). In his absence, miscreants allegedly owing allegiance to the saffron party set fire to his cowshed in the early hours of March 8.

According to the CPI(M)-led Left Front and the Congress, there have been more than a thousand such attacks on opposition members and supporters since March 2, the day the Assembly election results announced the return of the BJP-Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) alliance for its second consecutive term. The post-poll violence assumed alarming proportions—even a fact-finding team of opposition MPs and MLAs was not spared.

Sole agenda

From March 2, after the election results were announced, Tripura has been racked by political violence. Supporters and activists of the Left and the Congress, which joined forces in the elections, have been under continuous attack allegedly at the hands of the BJP. Their houses, shops, and other properties have either been gutted or damaged extensively, as have been their means of livelihood. More than a thousand people have allegedly left their homes; many are apparently being forced to pay money either to return to their homes or as fines for supporting the Left or the Congress. One CPI(M) activist from Sepahijala district told Frontline that he could return to his house only after paying Rs.50,000 to the local BJP leaders. “Apart from the money I was made to promise that I would not engage in political activities any more,” he said. 

Jitendra Choudhury, State secretary of the CPI(M) in Tripura and MLA from Sabroom, told Frontline: “The BJP’s only agenda is to destroy the opposition and end all democratic activities. For five years (after coming to power in 2018) it had unleashed a reign of terror on its political opponents. For a few months, thanks to the intervention of the Election Commission, this terror was temporarily suspended. Taking advantage of this, the masses had come out in a big way to cast their votes and defeat the BJP. As a result, the BJP’s vote share came down by 11 per cent to 40 per cent. The BJP won because of the division of votes, thanks to the TIPRA Motha. After coming to power, the law and order is back in their hands, and they are retaliating because of their loss of vote share. The parliamentary delegation’s trip has further exposed them.”

Agartala, Mar 16 (ANI): Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha takes the oath during the oath-taking ceremony of Members of the Legislative Assembly, at state Legislative Assembly house, in Agartala on Thursday. (ANI Photo) | Photo Credit: ANI

According to Choudhury, as a result of the bad publicity and increasing outrage among the people, the alleged attackers from the BJP have lately taken care not to be visible, and are carrying out their “terror agenda” in a subtler manner. “Now they are not allowing supporters and activists of the CPI(M) and Congress to go and earn their living; not allowing them to open their shops or go about their jobs. They may not be killing the opposition physically, but they are destroying them economically. As of today [March 16], there have been more than 2,000 cases of attacks against the Left-Congress. The police are just standing by and not doing anything; instead, they are arresting those who are trying to resist the BJP attacks,” said Choudhury.

Even the BJP has not been left unscathed in the violence. On March 2, local BJP leader Tapan Bhowmik, 70, was injured in a clash in Agartala. He succumbed to his injuries on March 13.

Left sympathiser Ashish Deb’s gutted cow. | Photo Credit: Daily Desher Katha

In the Assembly election, the BJP managed to scrape through in spite of a strong anti-incumbency factor working against it. One of the main grievances against the ruling party was its alleged strong-arm methods to suppress the voice of the opposition and thereby undermine the process of democracy.

In the election, the BJP-IPFT combine managed to get only 33 out of the 60 seats as against 44 in 2018. Even BJP leaders admitted that the triangular nature of the contest worked in their favour. “There would have been at least 5-6 seats that we would have lost to the Left-Congress had it not been for the division of votes due to the presence of TIPRA Motha in some of the non-tribal constituencies,” a highly-placed source in the BJP told Frontline.

Opposition gagged

The Left-leaning political observer and senior journalist Rahul Sinha pointed out that this time the post-poll violence was of a slightly different nature—more than physical attacks, it is the livelihood of the opposition workers and supporters that is being targeted.

Said Sinha: “In the first five years the attacks were more of a physical nature—25 Left workers and supporters were murdered, thousands were assaulted, offices were ransacked, houses were burnt down. This time the attack is on the livelihood of people.” If one has a rubber plantation it will be gutted, or an autorickshaw, or a shop, or any small business, Sinha added. “If you have a submersible pump and no other source of irrigation, that will be taken away. There are constant reports of people being asked to pay huge amounts of money just to stay at home. The idea seems to be to keep the people so engaged in trying to revive their livelihood, and put them through so much fear and trauma, that they do not dare engage in any kind of activity against the government. As a result, the economy of the State is badly hampered.”

Even the Congress, which had until recently been the main opposition in the State during the CPI(M) rule, acknowledged that the situation was never as bad for the opposition during the Left rule as it is with the BJP now. Tripura Pradesh Congress general secretary, Himangshu Kar, told Frontline, “During the CPI(M) time there was terror, but it was not as fearsome as it is with the BJP. At least then the opposition could carry out political programmes and had a voice. Now there is a planned effort to completely gag the opposition.”

Central team visit

As the violence continued unabated, a fact-finding team composed mainly of Left and Congress Mps visited Tripura and the affected districts accompanied by State MLAs and local leaders. Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, CPI(M)’s Rajya Sabha MP from West Bengal, who was part of the team, told Frontline: “They [the BJP] entered villages and identified CPI(M) cadre who had participated in the election campaign and poll process, and destroyed their houses. The neighbours were told that if they tried to protest they would meet with the same fate. This has been going on unabated, and the police has been reduced to puppets. They are afraid to even register FIRs.”

Left Front chairman Biman Bose leads a protest rally against Tripura election results in Kolkata on March 9. | Photo Credit: SHYAMAL MAITRA/ ANI

Even the parliamentary team was not spared and came under attack at Nehalchandra Nagar in Sepahijala district. “If they can threaten MPs and elected legislators in this manner, then you can imagine what the situation is for the common people. They have silenced the people with terror. It’s not just the homes that are being damaged, but also their means of livelihood; children’s books were destroyed, cattle were harmed. The situation is just terrible and very dangerous for democracy,” said Bhattacharya.

Though initially there was a plan to raise the issue in Parliament, Bhattacharya believes that it may not ultimately serve any purpose. “I personally do not think much can be attained by raising this issue in Parliament, as the BJP will say that this is a State issue....I believe that the only solution is to build up a strong unity of the people and resist this terror,” he said.

V. Sivadasan, Rajya Sabha MP from the CPI(M), in a letter to Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, dated March 11, had written: “The violence unleashed in Tripura is crossing all limits. Over a thousand incidents of violence have been reported in Tripura in very few days after the legislative assembly elections. The supporters of the ruling BJP are causing huge destruction in the State. A large number of houses and properties have been burnt and destroyed. Hundreds of people and opposition party sympathisers have been targeted and brutally attacked by criminals.”

The BJP, however, denied all reports of attacks and labelled them as a “deep conspiracy” to tarnish the image of the ruling party and the government of Tripura. Following the alleged attack on MPs, Nabendu Bhattacharya, spokesperson of the BJP in Tripura, issued a press release saying: “The local people had merely protested against the conspiracy. They did not accept the allegations of terror and denied any instance of political violence in the region. The Left-Congress leaders could not tolerate this.”

The Crux

• According to the CPI(M)-led Left Front and the Congress, there have been more than a thousand attacks on opposition members and supporters since March 2 in Tripura.
• Even a fact-finding team of opposition MPs and MLAs were attacked.
• The attack is chiefly on the livelihood of people.
• According to opposition leaders, the situation is very dangerous for democracy since it is aimed at gagging dissent.