Thaindian News

Agartala, Oct 23 (IANS) The Left Front government in Tripura Friday accused tribal militants of planning to “unleash a reign of terror” in the run-up to local council elections.
“Militant outfits from Tripura have sent a delegation of tribal leaders to New Delhi to meet the prime minister, home minister and Congress party president Sonia Gandhi to prepare a blueprint to unleash a reign of terror ahead of elections to the tribal autonomous district council,” said ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) spokesperson Gautam Das.

“The Congress party with the help of the now disbanded Tripura National Volunteers (TNV) in January 1988 had conspired against the then Left Front government to dislodge it,” Das told journalists here.

The Left leader said prior to the 1988 assembly elections, TNV guerillas had gunned down more than 90 non-tribal people in west and south Tripura.

“Again in 1990 and 2000 elections, the tribal based parties in Tripura in collaboration with the Congress and militants had wrested the politically important 30-seat tribal autonomous district council,” Das said.

“This time as well, the non-Left tribal based parties are busy adopting a similar strategy with the help of the central government to use militants as their tool before the district council polls,” Das alleged.

Elections for the district councils are scheduled in about six month’s time.

A five-member delegation of the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) met Home Minister P. Chidambaram, union Minister of State for Planning and Parliamentary Affairs V. Narayanaswamy, and union home secretary G.K. Pillai, in New Delhi Thursday.

The delegation, headed by INPT president Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl, submitted a memorandum to the centre demanding further empowerment of the Autonomous District Council, inclusion of the Kokborok language in the Eighth Schedule of the constitution and amendment to the tribals’ forest rights act.