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Mainstream, VOL LI, No 12, March 9, 2013

Behind the CPI-M’s Victory in Tripura

Sunday 10 March 2013

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by SHOUVIK CHANDA

The CPI-M has returned to power in Tripura with a decisive victory. However, certain facts need to be brought into focus.

On February 12 at a press conference in Agartala, the CPI-M’s Tripura State Committee Secretary Bijon Dhar had assured that all the demands of the State Government employees would be met once the party came back to power. All the major city newspapers flashed the news on February 13 only to find the State Party Secretary turning one-hundred-and-eighty degrees with another announcement the following day that the issue was only under consideration. Innocent voters were thus trapped and deceived since the vote was on February 14.

Prior to the move the government had declared the raising of the retirement age from 58 to 60, which was a demand of the Jautha Mancha, an umbrella organisation of 27 unions fighting for justice for the State Government employees.

Taking another step to regularise all the DRW (daily rated wages) staff in November last, the State Government was able to take a slice out of the Opposition in its favour. Though the Jautha Mancha had refused to accept the government’s Pay Review Committee proposal instead of a full fledged Pay Commission, the earlier provision of 2.5 per cent increment was narrowed down by three per cent to add 0.5 per cent more to appease the employees.

Moreover the government had obliged the employees by agreeing to a pay fixation formula from 1.74 to 1.86 last December to be effective from December 1, 2012. This came as a jolt to the dissidents. Also, the declaration of an additional seven per cent DA from last December played a crucial role in boosting the party’s image.

The Left Front has, however, become a myth with the RSP losing both the seats allocated to it and the Forward Bloc losing the only seat it contested. The only exception is the CPI: with two seats allocated, it has returned one from South Tripura’s Shantir Bazar ST seat, Manindra Reang.

THE parody of the State coffer having the potential to send lakhs and crores to the capital market—not at all at par with the rest of the nation—is comparable to one phrase in a story Selfish Giant of Oscar Wilde: “The spring has forgotten the giant’s garden.”

Meanwhile, it has been detected that in at least 27 Assembly constituencies out of 60, the postal ballots had gone in favour of the Congress-INPT combine. Postal ballots were around forty thousand. Since it is a trend here that all the family members vote in favour of one party, at least one lakh and sixty thousand votes went in favour of the Congress-INPT.

What went wrong was to have been analysed by the Congress leadership. On March 2 at Agartala in presence of the two main Congress leaders given responsibility of Tripura, that is, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gagoi and former Goa Chief Minister Faleiro, the ordinary Congress workers expressed their deep resentment over the dismal showing of the party at the hustings.

In the meantime sporadic violence by the CPI-M’s cadre force is being reported from different parts of the State with hundreds wounded and one killed till date.

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