These trends are disturbing. In a healthy democracy, every political party has the right to do its political programmes. The allegations of TMC against BJP for attacking its leaders should be a matter of concern. Already TMC has been trying to take this issue to the national stage and according to reports, it is going to meet President Ramnath Kovind over political violence in the north-eastern state. Although all these actions of TMC sound too hypocritical. There has been an ongoing CBI inquiry in West Bengal, after

There have been attacks on opposition leaders and workers of BJP, CPI(M) led Left Front, Indian Secular Front (ISF) and Congress. Worse is there have been allegations of murder and rape during the post-poll violence in the state. Undoubtedly, the allegations are against TMC. Such political attacks have increased since Mamata Banerjee led TMC came to power in 2011 in the state. The political violence has taken an ugly turn under its rule. As usual, the party completely rubbishes all these serious allegations and has been trying to portray that everything is “normal” in Bengal, even though the Calcutta High Court has strictly criticised Mamata government over the post-poll political violence in the state.

Coming back to Tripura, there has been a deterioration of law and order due to the increase in cases of political violence in recent times. To be fair, political violence isn’t new in the state. It had seen cases of political violence against opposition workers and supporters during CPI(M) led Left Front rule. While in the tribal belt, there were political attacks on leaders, workers and supporters of CPI(M) led Left Front. The state had gone through the worst phase of political violence during 1988-93 when the alliance of Congress-Tripura Upajati Juba Samiti was in power. It’s an undeniable fact that political violence in the state has increased after BJP along with its ally NC Debbarma led Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura came to power in 2018.

Since the saffron party came to power and Biplab Deb became chief minister, CPI(M) leaders and workers have faced maximum attacks across different parts of the state. Many senior leaders of the Left party, including the leader of opposition Manik Sarkar, the state’s longest-ruling chief minister, had faced attacks while trying to do party programmes. Present state Congress president Birajit Singha too had faced an attack in 2018. Not to forget that in September this year, people of the state were shocked to see the office of the state headquarters of CPI(M) vandalised allegedly by BJP workers and supporters. In those attacks, some local offices of CPI(M) came under attack along with attacks on three media houses, including the Daily Desher Katha office, the mouthpiece of CPI(M). Such things are rare in the history of the state's democracy. According to a report of Tripurainfo, the state’s leading online media house, it was way back in 1991 under the Congress-TUJS alliance government when there were attempts by the Congressmen to attack the office of Dainik Sambad, the state’s leading daily, following the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

It would be unfair to say that only opposition workers and supporters face attack in Tripura. After the victory of Pradyot Deb Barman-led TIPRA Motha in this year's Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) polls, there were reports of widespread attacks on BJP leaders and supporters in the tribal belt. Even recently, BJP MDC and leader of opposition in the TTAADC Hansha Kumar Tripura and his family were attacked allegedly by Motha supporters. Before the rise of Tipra Motha in the tribal belt, there were reports of clashes between the two allies — IPFT(NC) and BJP. The saffron party supporters used to allege that supporters of IPFT(NC) were attacking them. Now the situation has changed in the tribal belt as IPFT(NC) supporters too, along with BJP supporters, complain about facing attacks allegedly by Motha supporters.

The undeniable truth is that all these acts of political violence are only hurting the state's democracy. True that the leadership of every political party — both ruling and opposition — agrees that political violence isn’t healthy for the state’s democracy but the problem is their ground workers and supporters don’t heed much to these messages of their own leadership. This is a matter of deep concern for the leadership of every political party and just blaming the opponent isn’t going to solve this critical issue. As BJP is the state’s ruling party, it has extra responsibilities to ensure that the state’s democracy, which is deteriorating due to the increase in cases of political violence, remains healthy. (IPA Service)