However, at a time when the BJP government led by chief minister Biplab Deb is closer to complete three years in office, there have been serious allegations against the government for its failure to fulfill the promises. Ever since the government has ascended to power, there have been numerous charges against the ruling BJP for attacking the opposition supporters of CPI(M) and Congress. Even senior leaders of these parties aren’t spared by the BJP supporters — as alleged by CPI(M) and Congress.

The list includes former chief minister Manik Sarkar — who led four consecutive Left Front governments from 1998-2018 — and other CPI(M) leaders including former Lok Sabha MP and party’s tribal face Jitendra Chaudhury, former minister Bhanulal Saha and the party’s state secretary Gautam Das. On the other hand, former Congress state president Birajit Singha too features in the list. Even the party office of CPI — one of the junior partners of the CPI(M) led Left Front — was desecrated by alleged BJP supporters, as claimed by CPI.

It has to be mentioned that the recent attack on current Congress state president Pijush Kanti Bishwas wasn’t done by BJP supporters. The Congress even called a state bandh on January 18 against the alleged attack on its state chief — although the bandh didn’t evoke a resounding response in the state. In fact, it has now come to light that the attacker is Joydul Hossain, the minority cell head of the Congress — now arrested by the police.

Although Congress is alleging conspiracy, the former Congress state president and royal scion Pradyut Deb Barman — who left the party over differences, including the party's national view on NRC — tweeted that he wasn’t surprised over the arrest of that minority cell head of the Congress. According to Pradyut, during his party presidency, he even objected when a ticket was awarded to Hussain — as he was facing charges of child trafficking — but was overruled by the All India Congress Committee (AICC). This episode has again exposed the ugly infighting within the Congress’s Tripura unit. No doubt, this is a big embarrassment for the Congress party which even called a state-wide bandh blaming BJP for a crime committed by its own minority cell head.

However, this one major incident doesn’t prove that there are no alleged attacks on the opposition leaders. Not to mention that there have been regular clashes in the hilly areas between the local leaders and supporters of BJP and IPFT(NC). IPFT(NC) is an ally of the BJP and has two ministers in the Biplab Deb government.

Besides, there have been allegations of the government’s lack of action within time, including the recent clashes between police and retrenched teachers in Agartala. The retrenched teachers — often known as 10,323 — have been demanding alternative employment, as promised by the BJP government. It has to be mentioned that the 10,323 teachers recruited by the previous Left Front government between 2010 and 2014 had to lose their jobs after Tripura High Court in 2014, based on complaints filed by other candidates for the teachers’ posts, invalidated the recruitments finding irregularities in the process.

Although the Supreme Court too upheld the High Court’s judgement in 2017, it agreed with the then Left government’s request to allow them to continue to avoid the shortage of teachers in the government schools. Later even the BJP led government applied to the Supreme Court to further extend the deadline — and the apex court too extended it to March 2020. The teachers didn’t lose their jobs until April last year. This has been a major issue — and before the 2018 polls, the BJP promised to solve this, which no doubt has been resulted due to irregularities done in the process by the previous Manik Sarkar led CPI(M) government.

However, it has been close to three years in power but the Biplab Deb led BJP government failed to solve this crisis. True that the state government offered the teachers a chance to face interviews for 9000 vacant posts in the government departments, including the education department, but the teachers refused to face interviews. Their view is that these interviews aren’t solely for them and they have to compete with other eligible unemployed candidates. Obviously, their objections are genuine too. These retrenched teachers can’t suffer for the mistake committed by the previous Left government. Already more than 70 of these teachers have died due to psychological trauma since 2014 — with some of them even committed suicide. To be fair, around 2000 of these teachers have been absorbed in other government posts.

With no way visible to them, these teachers have been forced to sit for demonstrations for more than 50 days. The government shouldn’t have used force to break the demonstration — just because these teachers, as alleged by BJP, are supported by opposition CPI(M). Even if this allegation is true, there is nothing wrong — as in a democracy every opposition party has the right to protest peacefully against the government. Instead, the government should find a solution to this problem immediately — which also should be acceptable to these sacked teachers. If possible the government could also look into main opposition leader Manik Sarkar’s views to revive the 13,000 non-teaching posts created by his own Left government in 2017 — although there has been a stay by the apex court after it heard a petition challenging the process and recruitment rules; the stay is still in place.

No doubt, the image of BJP in Tripura has been dented due to many charges directed against the Biplab Deb government — which is also facing internal divisions as some party MLAs have shown disaffection regarding Biplab's style of working. Amid this, the government too has been facing criticisms for again deferring the TTAADC elections along with urban body polls. The Tripura High Court recently ordered the government to complete the formation of a new TTAADC council by May 17. On the other hand, the government has been slow on the Bru rehabilitation issue — despite the fact that 2 innocent lives have already been lost in violence last November in Kanchanpur of North Tripura district as a result of the pending Bru issue. It is time for the BJP to seriously introspect on Tripura before it is too late.(IPA Service)