Agartala, June 27: The crisis triggered by the downsizing of the Manik Sarkar ministry took a new turn today, with the CPI alleging that strong-arm tactics were used to force its lone representative in the cabinet to quit. A group of CPM supporters allegedly forced Manindra Reang, minister for the primitive group programme, to resign today.
Reang was also forced to leave Agartala for his home at Bagafa in Belonia subdivision to avoid meeting the media.
CPI state secretary Prashanta Kopali claimed that a group of CPM goons went to Reang’s official residence here at 1 pm and threatened him with dire consequences.
They took him to the official residence of finance minister Badal Chowdhury, where he was “forced to put his signature on a letter of resignation prepared in advance”.
Warning that this move would threaten Left unity, Kopali said, “This will come up for discussion at the party’s central secretariat meeting on July 5 in New Delhi.”
A CPM source, however, refuted allegations that the party had played big bully, merely saying, “We have heard that Reang had gone to Chowdhury’s residence and handed over his resignation.”
The CPM state committee had decided to drop five of its own ministers yesterday and “requested” the CPI to withdraw its sole representative. The 18-member ministry has to be downsized to 12.
CPM spokesman Gautam Das said, “Before the downsizing, the ministry had representatives from altogether 11 subdivisions and we wanted to keep this intact,” Das said.
But at the meeting of the Left Front yesterday, the CPI put up an objection, backed by the other minor constituents, the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Forward Bloc.
The CPI also declined to drop its minister at its state council meeting today, sending a letter of refusal to Left Front convener and CPM secretary Baidyanath Mazumder.
However, governor D.N. Sahaya today accepted the resignations of all six ministers.
Interestingly, Manindra Reang had won his Assembly poll on a CPI ticket but remained a CPM member.
The state CPM leadership had forced the party to drop its sitting MLA and jail minister Balaram Reang and nominate Reang as its candidate for the Assembly election in February last year.
Contrary to the stand taken by the CPI leadership, Reang told mediapersons yesterday that he had not tendered his resignation because “the chief minister had not asked” him to do so. “As and when the chief minister tells me, I will definitely resign,” Reang had added.