Tripura Pragatishil Gramin Congress, a new political party, has called a general strike on May 12 to protest against the ‘mass rigging’ in the elections conducted in two Lok Sabha constituencies in Tripura. The party announced the decision to enforce a dawn-to-dusk strike in Tripura on Friday afternoon and demanded repolling.
Gramin Congress, which was launched by former Congress MLA Subal Bhowmik after his defeat in the assembly elections in February last year, has been protesting against the alleged manipulation in West and tribal-reserved East Tripura constituencies that went to poll on April 7 and April 12 respectively. It blamed Chief Electoral Officer Ashutosh Jindal for ‘all wrongdoings’.
“We have called the strike in protest against massive bogus voting and manipulation in the elections. We have submitted complaints to the election commission along with evidences to the election commission, but no action taken so far”, Mr. Bhowmik told reporters.
CPI(M) has strongly opposed the strike call and termed the move as an attempt to run away from reality of an impending massive defeat in Lok Sabha polls. It also set aside allegations of manipulation in any manner in the elections which recorded an 85 per cent turnover.
Trinamool Congress that announced an agitation programme starting on May 5 has however said it would not support nor oppose the strike call. “Our leader Mamata Banerjee is really not in favour of a strike as it does not achieve much”, State chairman of the party Ratan Chakraborty told The Hindu .
Sources in Congress and BJP also ruled out possibility of giving open support to the strike. They would not oppose the strike as well.
The controversy over farcical elections surfaced after a local cable news channel aired footage over breach of election procedures at a polling station in Bishalgarh near Agartala. The election department is conducting a thorough probe into the charges.
