BJP’s Tripura ally rules out tie-up for Lok Sabha polls
The announcement came a day after the CBI booked over 300 IPFT members – including three party leaders – for their alleged involvement in the murder of two journalists last year.
The Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) on Monday evening said it will not contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in alliance with the BJP. The announcement came a day after the CBI booked over 300 IPFT members – including three party leaders – for their alleged involvement in the murder of two journalists last year.
The IPFT is an alliance partner of the BJP, which stormed to power in the March assembly polls. Party leaders said they took the decision after the BJP proposed the names of its own candidates for the upcoming elections without bothering to consult them.
“The BJP has selected its candidates and begun preparing to contest the two Lok Sabha seats in the state on its own. The decision has forced us to contest independently,” IPFT assistant general secretary Mangal Debbarma told mediapersons on Monday evening. He, however, did not specify if the IPFT intended to part ways with the coalition government in the state.
BJP general secretary Pratima Bhowmik admitted that the BJP has begun preparing for the Lok Sabha polls, but said that the regional party needn’t concern itself with seat-sharing issues just yet. “The IPFT should know that the names of the candidates are revealed just after the Lok Sabha poll date is declared,” she pointed out.
The IPFT also denounced the “rumours” being spread against its leaders as far as the murder of journalists was concerned, and termed it as a conspiracy hatched by the opposition to tarnish the party’s image.
“We are yet to get all the details. We want the CBI to take stern action against the culprits too, but not at the cost of IPFT leaders and other innocent people,” said Debbarma.
Shantanu Bhowmik, a TV journalist, was hacked to death on September 20 last year amid clashes between two rival indigenous political bodies at Mandwai, around 28 kilometres from Agartala. Sudip Datta Bhowmik, another senior crime reporter of a Bengali daily, was shot dead two months later allegedly by a Tripura State Rifles commandant at RK Nagar, 20 kilometres from Agartala.
The CBI is investigating both the cases.
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