Agartala, Apr 10, 2023, IANS

Agartala, April 10 (IANS): The opposition Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) on Monday claimed that during the last 40 days, over 2,015 incidents of attacks on the offices and supporters of opposition parties had occurred but in most cases, no action was taken against the perpetrators, most of whom, according to the Left party, belong to the ruling BJP.

A six-member CPI-M delegation led by former Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar on Monday met Chief Minister Manik Saha and explained the "reign of terror" unleashed by the ruling BJP members and the "party-backed goons" since March 2, the day February 16 assembly election results were declared and the saffron party led government came to power for the second consecutive term.

Sarkar said that almost every day since March 2, incidents of attacks on opposition party members and supporters are being reported and at least five people were killed. "Police remained a wooden doll and in most cases they did not take any actions to rescue the victims and to arrest the culprits," the CPI-M politburo member told the media.

The Chief Minister assured the CPI-M delegation of taking appropriate steps to stop such attacks, he said.

"BJP seems very disappointed over its declining vote share in the February 16 assembly polls in Tripura. The party's electoral performance in the February 27 assembly polls in Nagaland and Meghalaya was also awful despite mobilisations of all huge kinds of resources," the Left leader said.

Sarkar said: "The BJP thought and accordingly campaigned that the entire opposition would be wiped out in the state and they would get 50 to 55 seats in the 60 member assembly, but the results showed a steady decline in its support base with vote share reducing from 51 per cent to 39 per cent. The seat count has reduced by four as compared to the 2018 assembly elections."

In the February 16 assembly polls, the BJP secured 32 seats and its ally Indigenous People's Front of Tripura got one in the last elections to the 60-member assembly, while the CPI-M secured 11 and its electoral ally Congress bagged three. Surprising the pundits and political and non-political leaders, the tribal based Tipra Motha Party (TMP) became the second single largest party after BJP winning 13 seats.

In terms of seat sharing in the assembly polls, the TMP is the first tribal-based local party to get the main opposition party status in the Tripura assembly.