By Firstdespatch Desk Jan 09, 2023
Agartala, Jan 9 (FD) Prominent communist leader and leader of the opposition in Tripura assembly, Manik Sarkar has urged the Election Commission (EC) to ensure free and fair elections in Tripura.
Sarkar, who is also the former Chief Minister of the state alleged the ECI set a bad precedence in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and the last by-elections as people could not vote freely and fairly.
He said this in a programme of CITU that ECI set a bad precedence as a result of which genuine voters could not exercise their franchise freely on these two occasions.
He claimed that when the CPI (M) tried to draw the attention of EC functionaries to the alleged misconduct of BJP workers, "the EC officials said they were not responsible for what happened outside polling stations and the police would look into such grievances".
"This time, we will not be convinced with such remarks, if genuine voters face any trouble in exercising their franchise. We want to remind your constitutional responsibility to ensure that electors can exercise their democratic rights without any fear or intimidation. You have to facilitate an environment so that the voting right of each elector is protected," the CPI (M) leader said in an apparent reference to the EC.
Claiming that the BJP has "no chance" to win the upcoming assembly elections, Sarkar claimed that its strength has weakened substantially as its ally IPFT has lost importance in Tripura politics.
Those anti-Left leaders, who were with the BJP during the 2018 elections, returned to the Congress, he added.
"We came to know that 100 companies of central forces have already arrived in the state and 300 more will come. You can bring 1,000 companies of central forces.
The heavy deployment of central forces may be a ploy. They have realized that people are angry over the misrule of the present dispensation," he said. FD JK