Agartala, Feb. 1: For the first time in Tripura?s electoral history, security forces engaged in counter-insurgency operations have been dragged into a major controversy by political parties.
PCC chief Birajit Sinha, who took the help of the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura and its president Bijay Kumar Hrangkhwal in garnering the president?s post after losing a party election to it, is toeing the INPT?s line on nearly all issues, particularly relating to deployment of forces.
During the past decade, militant outfits have always been opposed to the deployment of Tripura State Rifles jawans in interior areas as they regularly carried out successful operations.
Goaded by the NLFT, the INPT leadership earlier opposed setting up TSR camps and headquarters in interior areas in spite of the fact that the common people, both tribals and non-tribals, always demanded TSR posts to keep the militants in check.
Even senior army officials have appreciated the dedicated counter-insurgency operations of the TSR jawans.
But with the onset of the polling process, the Congress has now joined the INPT in demanding removal of the TSR from effective duty without even citing a specific charge.
The Election Commission has already made it clear that the TSR will be out of ?static poll duty?. But in a letter to Union home ministry joint secretary R.C. Jain on January 29, INPT president Bijay Kumar Hrangkhwal and PCC president Birajit Sinha requested him to direct the state government to withdraw 40 TSR camps located in strategic interior areas used by NLFT militants.