Two days after Tipra Motha founder Pradyot Kishore said he was on good terms with both the Congress and the BJP but not with the CPI(M), Tripura Leader of Opposition (LoP) Jitendra Chaudhury Friday criticised the tribal party for joining the BJP-led ruling alliance in the state after having served as the principal Opposition.
“I am not unhappy with his (Pradyot Kishore) statement. I am grateful to him that he had spoken the right thing. The CPI(M) is different. We never surrender to power or any other vested interest,” Chaudhury said.
The CPI(M) leader said Kishore’s party “forged an alliance through the backdoor” to help the return to power during the 2023 Assembly elections.
Meanwhile, attacking the BJP, Chaudhury said, “The 125th (Amendment) Bill is kept in the refrigerator in Parliament. In Tripura, for the past 7.5 years, the tribals of Tripura have been made second-class citizens. The TTAADC (Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council) has been reduced to a beggar. They are not conducting village council elections as well.”
Chaudhury also criticised BJP MLA Sudhangshu Das over his recent controversial remark on the Pahalgam terror attack and called him a “habitual offender”.
Pradyot Kishore had visited the Congress Bhawan in Agartala on Wednesday to return some party flags lying with him from the time when he was a member of the Grand Old Party. He even served as the state president of the Congress in 2019, and later floated the Tipra Motha.
When asked about his visit to the Congress office, Pradyot Kishore had made the ‘not on good terms with the CPI(M)’ comment.
Earlier, on several occasions, Pradyot Kishore was heard saying that tribals were deliberately kept poor during the 25 years of Communist rule from 1993-2018, and former BJP CM and Lok Sabha member Biplab Kumar Deb “really loves tribals”.
