Politics / Tripura

Agartala, May 2: One of the major militant organisations of Tripura has accused police and paramilitary forces of pressuring its members to surrender by unfairly targeting their family members. “Police officers and security personnel have been raiding the houses of Tiger Force activists and leaders and asking family members and relatives to make their wards surrender,” the All Tripura Tiger Force said in a statement mailed to newspaper offices.

Publicity secretary Bikash Koloi quoted Tiger Force chief Ranjit Debbarma as saying he would not respond to the peace overtures by the government...

AGARTALA, May 1– Tripura People’s Democratic Forum, the political wing of the banned All Tripura Tiger Force, has alleged that the Tripura police were intimidating the relatives of insurgents to compel the outfit to sit for peace talks. In a press statement , a copy of which was given to PTI, the Front said it would negotiate only after three conditions were fulfilled by the government. “There was no point of joining the peace talks unless the conditions were fulfilled.”

The first condition was that those who entered Tripura after 1949 and whose names were not included in the voters’ lists...

NEW DELHI, April 7— The arms haul believed to be the country’s biggest so far has rattled the Government of Bangladesh so much so that it has reportedly put its airports on red alert restricting the movement of 29 persons including top leaders of ULFA, NDFB, ATTF and NLFT besides a few other militant outfits. While security agencies in the country continue to grope in the dark, reports of a confidential order by Bangladesh Government restricting movement of a few selected individual has aroused the curiosity of the intelligence agencies here. Sources revealed that the Look Out List delivered...

AGARTALA, April 6 – A senior Schedule Caste leader and PCC general secretary Jitendra Das joined the CPM after severing his 35 years tie with the Congress. Das joined the CPM in a public rally Sunday held at Khayerpur near Agartala in presence of Chief Minister Manik Sarkar. Das who started his political career as SFI (CPM’s student wing) leader in early sixties joined the Congress during the time of former Chief Minister Sukhamoy Sengupta. Considered an efficient organizer and an honest politician he however did not get expected recognition from the party. He was neither given the party...

AGARTALA, April 1 – Battle lines are drawn for the elections to the two Lok Sabha constituencies in Tripura with candidates of the ruling Left Front, who won in the last general elections, looking to increase their margins when the elections are held in the State on April 22, reports PTI. In the 1999 elections, CPI-M candidate Samar Chowdhuri contesting from the West Tripura constituency defeated his nearest rival from Trinamool Congress Sudhir Ranjan Majumder, former Chief Minister of Tripura by a margin of 1,98,399 votes.

The same result was achieved by the CPI-M in the East Tripura...

Agartala, March 10: Mizoram chief minister Zoramthanga?s efforts to bring six militant outfits to the negotiation table have triggered dissension in the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT).

Sources said the NLFT faction led by Biswamohan Debbarma has opposed the chief minister?s move and ruled in favour of continuing militant activities. This led to a clash with the pro-negotiation members of the group led by Mantu and Dhanu Koloi on February 17. Though a lot of blood was shed, the exact number of casualties is not yet known. However, a number of NLFT rebels have fled their camps in...

Agartala, March 8: At a time when the National Democratic Alliance is flooded with star entrants at the national level, the formation in Tripura continues to be beleaguered by feuds among its five constituents.

Comprising only the BJP and Trinamul Congress in the beginning, the state unit of the NDA had posed a major challenge to the Congress, the main Opposition here, in the 1999 Lok Sabha polls. However, subsequent elections witnessed a downslide in the fortune of the BJP and the Trinamul, so much so that in the last Assembly elections they ended up losing security deposits in all seats.

Th...

Agartala, Feb. 24: The countrywide 24-hour bandh called by the Leftist trade unions to press for a 22-point charter of demands, passed off peacefully. Yesterday, chief secretary R.K. Mathur issued a circular directing government employees to attend offices today, warning that unless they did so action would be taken against them.

Employees, however, stayed away from state and central government offices even though there was hardly any picketing. Students and businessmen also enjoyed a forced holiday.

There were no incidents of confrontation between rival party workers and supporters. Despite...

Agartala, Feb. 22: A week after the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) roped in the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) as coalition partner in the Northeast, New Delhi is toying with the idea of persuading one faction of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) to lay down arms.

The Centre was optimistic that INPT president and former insurgent leader Bijay Kumar Hrangkhawal would be able to convince the NLFT (Biswamohan group) to start a dialogue and surrender en masse.

The INPT team that signed the coalition deal has assured the BJP leadership that the tribal party would...

Agartala, Feb. 19: Several senior Congress leaders, including a former chief minister and at least five sitting MLAs, are planning to quit the party and join the BJP in Tripura.

Congress sources said BJP?s central leader Dilip Singh Bhuriyan and party MP from Manipur, M. Kamson, had come to Tripura on official work. The two were closeted for more than an hour with Congress MLA Samir Ranjan Barman on January 31 inside the VIP room of Agartala airport.

All three boarded the same flight to Calcutta. What transpired between them was not clear. Barman was not available for comment either.

Possibly...