What's Happening In Tripura?
By A Special Correspondent
First publised on 2021-11-23 09:46:38
About the Author
What is happening in Tripura is total highhandedness. Is the state turning into a police state? When there are communal disturbances and the media wants to report on them, innocent journalists who are just doing their job are either stopped from visiting the area or are arrested on flimsy grounds under draconian provisions. On the political side, with the Trinamool Congress making a huge bid to capture the opposition space vacated by the CPI(M), the BJP government in the state is using all ploys to prevent the party from approaching the people. Its leaders are being arrested, again on flimsy or fabricated charges. The Biplab Kumar Deb government in the state is fast losing all goodwill that allowed it to sweep the state in 2018 by ousting the well-entrenched Left Front government that had been ruling the state for 25 years on the trot before that.
Tripura shares a huge border with Bangladesh. The BJP had played on the fears of the local, largely Bengali, population of being swamped by illegal aliens, mostly Muslims and won their support. But when the NRC and CAA fears were stoked, many Bengalis in Tripura, like in West Bengal, came to distrust the BJP. Further, with the TMC retaining West Bengal comfortably, it knows that it has the chance to seize power in Tripura too by the dual tactic of the Muslim vote bank and the fear the Hindu population has of being left out in the NRC due to not having the proper documents, as several were left out in neighbouring Assam.
But the way to fight falling popularity is not by turning dictatorial. The BJP government in Tripura, like in other states, is trying to suppress dissent by using oppression. This further shows the common man that the government has no answers to the questions being asked by the opposition. Hence, it should stop using state power to crush opposition and should win the peoples trust by doing some explaining. Deb is a good orator (although given to put his foot in the mouth sometimes) and he should take the lead to fight TMC politically instead of using the police to do the dirty work.
